Equipment for the Next Big Thing

Artisan pastry is both a keeper of tradition and heirloom recipes and a place of innovation where a lot of the new pastry favorites are born. With the right equipment, pastry chefs and bakers have a little more time to think of the next New York Roll.

Artisan bakeries rely a lot on manual labor: shaping, decorating, sometimes even laminating are done by bakers and pastry chefs. It is a measure of skill as much as a reality of small bakeries, with limited resources. There are, however, many technologies that fit into a tiny space and can make pastry chefs’ lives easier, especially in the steps that involve a lot of physical effort.

Mixers and Fermenters for Every Need

Batch mixers are essential in bakeries, as they take the load off and are also easy to use and clean. They adapt easily to all sorts of doughs, as small bakeries tend to use the same equipment for several types of products. 

Bundy Baking provides mixing solutions that can be used for artisan-style dough, catering to its particular challenging characteristics. Wendi Ebbing, VP Marketing, Bundy Baking, explains that the company’s mixers are suitable for artisan-style products already, without any changes necessary – depending on what the recipe itself is. “Maybe the dough needs to be cooler, for example, but we can change out the bowl, so we could have the machine to work with the system and the customer’s artisan type dough with just minor changes. We can also look at the characteristics of the dough, the absorption and stiffness of the dough, inclusions – and be able to offer the right design for the product.”

VMI Mixing, which has been producing mixers both for industrial and artisanal use, brings to iba 2023 a bottom discharge mixer with a cooled bowl, which helps baker handle delicate, soft products or demanding cold doughs – it’s called Magnus. With its cooled bowl and controlled atmosphere, it’s the ideal solution for demanding processes with high output. In addition, the bottom discharge allows for a compact footprint and great flexibility. 

Fermenters are another tool that help bakers have better control of the process. And equipment producers continue to innovate in this field. This year, DIOSNA showcases at iba fermenters that suit every need, from artisan to industrial production. They help bakers with more efficient processes by reducing kneading times, scrap dough and leftover bread processing, improved products: extended shelf-life, improved freshness, better shelter against mold, slowbaking, and a wide range of application: rye and wheat sourdough, sponge, Aromastück.

In the range of pre-dough systems, DIOSNA addresses especially to bakeries. The portfolio of the pre-dough machines includes compact systems for medium-sized bakeries up to automated systems for industrial bakeries. All systems enable an economical and uncomplicated process of the production of baked goods. The range of the pre-dough systems also includes fermentation systems, ensuring optimum dough characteristics according to specific consistency and flavor. 

Laminators to the Rescue

Croissant dough is not only labor-intensive, but it requires discipline, precision and good quality ingredients. Leave any of these out and the outcome can be uneven, unappetizing, and wasteful. That is what semi- and fully-automated laminators can prevent, provided they are calibrated to work with the ingredients at hand.

In order to create the more than 25 layers any good croissant can boast, gluten-heavy dough must be folded at least four times onto itself while filling the space between the dough sheets with cold fat – butter, shortening or lard – so that, when in the oven, the fat pockets expand the gluten structure and give the final product volume, structure, crispness and flakiness. 

Rondo offers two dough laminators that are powerful and small enough to find their place in an artisanal bakery. The Econom 4000 is a precision mechanical dough sheeter that will fit in any small bakery as well as in almost any hotel or restaurant kitchen or pizza shop. It has a conveyor belt with a width of only 475 mm, ergonomic design and a revolver handle that allows the baker to adjust the roller gap by hand for fatigue-free work. It processes 3 – 4 kg of dough at once – but dough bands can be processed uniformly even if the dough block quality varies – and 20 – 50 kg dough per hour.

The Rondomat 4000 is a versatile mechanical dough sheeter for small to medium-sized bakeries with an ergonomic design that makes it easy to operate. The machine has a guard tube for operating elements, fold-up tables and, most importantly, it can be rolled, which makes it easy to move. It can process heavy dough blocks – 7 – 10 kg – and it works 50 to 100 kg per hour.

Pie Molders for Artisanal Feel without the Hassle

Pie can do no wrong. They offer consumers a piece of indulgence, filled with seasonal fruit and childhood memories. But their production is time consuming and it requires high consistency. Automated molders can help bakers deliver the same product every time. 

GEA’s base formers work for both small-scale or the highest-capacity production requirements and can be configured to faultlessly complete end-to-end processing, and integrate with filling depositors and molding units for customized lids and lattices.

The compact Tartomatic pie-making machine was madel for producing different shapes and sizes of pies, quiches and tarts, and can be configured with a volumetric extruder to make biscuit crumb cheesecake bases, and integrated with a volumetric depositor for cream or jam.

You can read the rest of this article in the September-October issue of European Baker & Biscuit, which you can access by clicking here.