How to Make a Bread Stencil Using Your Cricut

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Isolation baking was definitely a thing in our home. A lot of bread was baked. Here’s how to make a bread stencil.

I am doing my fair share of baking while at home. One of my sons also got into baking, specifically the whole sourdough bread thing.

Sourdough bread making is an interesting process that is based on a sourdough starter that needs to be fed every week. It takes 3 days to make sourdough bread. On the first day, he makes the starter from the mother. On the second day, he makes the dough. Then on the third day, he shapes the bread and bakes it.

Since he got so good at it (yes, we’ve been eating bread regularly now!), we decided to step it up a bit and utilize bread stencils.

A bread stencil is used just before scoring and baking. It adds a nice, decorative touch to a loaf of bread. It’s easy to make a bread stencil using your Cricut.

What to Make the Stencil Out Of

Finding the right material for the stencil posed the greatest challenge. The stencil needs to be pliable, yet sturdy. Since the uncooked bread was not completely flat, it needed to be able to lay along a curve. I also wanted it to be reusable since we make bread a couple of times a week.

Heavy cardstock (110lb) was too stiff and not really pliable. Lighter weight cardstock (65lb) was just okay. Similar in weight was some decorative paper that I use for card making. I got it from the dollar store. That was also just okay.

Lightweight scrapbook paper worked well. It needs to be that lighter stuff. The only issue is that it is not really reusable.

For me, the best material was the plastic laminating pouches for my home laminator. The pouches are 2 pieces of laminate joined together in one spot. You insert your item in between the 2 layers and then send it through the laminator. I cut the laminating pouches apart where it was joined – I only needed to use half of the pouch.

I have 2 different thicknesses of laminating pouches – 3 mil and 5 mil. The 3 mil is the Amazon Basics brand, while the 5 mil is the Royal Sovereign brand. The 3 mil is somewhat preferred as the thinness allows it to drape over curved surfaces easily. The 5 mil isn’t bad and certainly works but the 3 mil is better.

Now I haven’t had a chance to try it, but I have heard in a couple of my Facebook groups a product by Grafix, called Duralar. Several people have recommended it and have had good success.

Cutting single laminate plastic is not a setting on the Cricut Maker. I cut many stencils out using all different settings…and destroyed many. In the end, I used the Transparency Setting. This worked for both the 3 mil and the 5 mil. The 5 mil was preferred for more intricate designs as the 3 mil was somewhat delicate and cutting it was inconsistent.

TIP: Make sure your mat is sticky everywhere. Make sure that the laminating pouch is stuck on everywhere. So use a new-ish mat if you have one. A trick is turning your mat around (they’re square) and putting your laminating pouch in that corner. It tends to be stickier there.

ANOTHER TIP: Make sure your blade is sharp – especially if it is an intricate design. To sharpen your blade, you can poke it repeatedly in a ball of aluminum foil.

What You Need to Make a Bread Stencil

• Cricut cutting machine. I use the Cricut Maker, but you can use the Air 2 as well.
• Design. Create your own or look online for various designs.
• Laminating pouch (cut apart so that it is a single layer)

How to Make a Bread Stencil

• Upload your design. Be sure to use the magic want to get rid of all the background. Save it as a cut file.
• Layer your graphic on top of the bread stencil template; size it accordingly – you want ample space all around so that when you are stencilling and you miss, it doesn’t get on the bread.
• Select both items (make sure it is only 2 – the graphic and the template; if you have more than 1 graphic, you will have to “weld” them together so that it is one item) & “slice” (bottom right). Slice only works with 2 items selected.
• Remove the graphic and the sliced part in the bread stencil.
• You should be left with the bread stencil with your design cut out.
• Cut your stencil out using a setting that corresponds with your material.

How to Use the Bread Stencil

Now comes the fun part. Use your bread stencil after your bread has proofed. This is just before you put it into the oven and before you score the dough.

Lay your stencil on top of the bread. Depending on the shape of your loaf, it may be tricky to get it to lay flat. The easiest solution is to opt for a smaller stencil, in the middle.

I have read about spraying the underside of the stencil with cooking spray to help it “stick” to the dough. We didn’t find that it worked. Perhaps it was the material that our stencils were made out of but it did not work.

The easiest is a simple stencil in the middle of the loaf. You can put stencils on the side, but they don’t sit perfectly flat. We were okay with it not being perfect.

Next, you will give a gentle dusting on top of the stencil. I have tried a few different things. Here are the results.

• all-purpose flour – you’ll have this on hand anyway
• rice flour – this results in a nice white stencil as rice flour has a higher burning point than all-purpose flour
• cocoa powder – creates a nice, dark brown stencil
• spinach powder – has a nice green look to it
• beetroot powder – starts out as a nice fuschia colour but then after it cooks it looks dark brown
• tomato powder – it starts out as a nice red colour but after cooked, looked black, like it was burnt. It didn’t taste burnt, however.

To dust the stencil, you can use one of the following:

• a mini mesh strainer
• a handheld shaker

You don’t need too much. A little goes a long way. Don’t worry if it is not completely covered. It does not have to be completely opaque. This is a case where less is more. Too much will result in a “pile”.

Carefully remove the stencil, revealing your design. Here are all the different ones we tried.

Then score the bread. Try to work around the design to enhance it by framing it. Bake as directed.

Keep in mind that the stencil does not “bake on”. It is simply the powder laying on top of the bread. If you touch it, it may smudge. You could also literally brush it off. So be careful when handling your bread. That said, we did find that the cocoa powder adhered better than the rice flour.

Here are a number of sourdough loaves that my son baked using different kinds of powders. Which ones do you like?

To us, the best results are the AP flour, rice flour, cocoa powder and spinach powder.

Want to remember how to make a bread stencil using your Cricut? Be sure to save this to your favourite Pinterest board.