A Single Cabbage Leaf Is All You Need For More Beautiful Baked Goods

Anyone on social media has seen countless loaves of bread decorated with intricate scoring patterns. Wheat stalks, hashtags, leaves, trees — almost anything you can think of has been delicately sliced into proofed bread dough before being baked. And though you do need to score bread dough to control its rise in the oven, you don't have to be an artist to get beautifully decorated loaves. Ditch the blade and grab a cabbage leaf.

A single leaf from this cruciferous vegetable is venous and sturdy enough to be pressed on top of bread dough. In the oven, the dough will rise and press up against the cabbage leaf; after baking, peel the leaf away and unveil an amazing natural leaf pattern on your loaf of bread (with no trace of cabbage flavor). You could also choose to cover the bottom of your pan of choice with cabbage leaves so the pattern imprints onto the bottom of the bread as well. Be sure to lightly coat the leaves with oil or cooking spray to ensure an easy peel-off.

With this technique in mind, you can get creative and think of other vegetables that might work with your bread dough. Asparagus stalks might hold up well in the oven, though you'd likely need to trim them into short pieces to cover the top of your bread since they wouldn't bend well raw. Try leaving your carrot tops on and slicing the carrots lengthwise into thin halves or thirds and pressing those into your dough. Another option would be dehydrated citrus slices, like oranges; don't try to use raw citrus, though, as the liquid will interfere with the bread's bake. Whatever you choose should be relatively thin and very sturdy so it doesn't prevent the bread from rising and is easy to peel away once it's done its job.

You can try this decor idea with any type of bread; perfectly proofed sourdough works just as well as non-fermented doughs. Even though you remove them before eating, we still think this counts as adding vegetables to your homemade bread.