Focaccia slicer

Lauren wanted to made sandwiches out of a round focaccia loaf for an unusually long square dance session.  The question was how to slice it in half neatly.  Plan A was to firmly support both ends a long knife horizontally half a focaccia loaf height above the counter and slide the loaf back and forth past it.  Unfortunately, we didn’t have a knife long enough.

Armed with the “half a focaccia loaf” measurement of 2.6cm and a sturdy Wusthof knife with a flatish handle, I scrounged around in the scrap box and found something with a smooth bottom and just the right thickness.  I drilled the holes for the zip ties at an angle so I’d have less material to remove to recess the zip ties so the bottom would be completely flat.  Here’s the slicer ready to be tested, err, used as designed.

The smooth bottom of the block slid nicely against the counter top, and the knife did its job admirably.  The first loaf was sliced about perfectly; the second showed just the kind of small discontinuity you’d expect cutting thru something with a tool not long enough to cut in one pass.  But it was still completely acceptable.

Here are Lauren’s sandwiches.  They were both beautiful and very good.  She cut each into 8 wedges, with a bamboo skewer in each wedge to hold it neatly.

You can see the shim needed to make up for the slightly curved handle in this “after” pic.  Another successful junkbox quickie!