Baking
Practical Action
Sandwich tins
A range of larger tins for sponge cakes
Scales
0-1 kg for minor ingredients, 0-50 kg for weighing flour
Spatulas
For stirring or beating ingredients
Storage bins
For bulk ingredients, baskets/trays for distribution of bakery products
Thermometer
For testing dough temperature or oven temperature. Special sugar thermometer for
testing the temperature when making sugar confectionery
Whisks
For beating batters
Table 1: Small items of bakery equipment (Adapted from Fellows and Axtell, 2004)
Mixers
Mixing is laborious and time-consuming, especially when preparing
thick batters and doughs, and electric mixers are used whenever
they are affordable. At household- and micro-scales of production it
may be possible to use domestic mixers that are similar in operation
to planetary mixers (below), but they are not designed for lengthy
periods of continuous use and may need regular replacement of
drive shaft pins or other components. All mixers are potentially
dangerous and should be fitted with covers or grilles to prevent
operators putting their hands into the mixing bowl when the mixer is
operating. They should also have fail-safe devices such as an
electric interlock to stop the machine operating if the cover is
opened or not properly secured. Planetary mixers (Figure 2) are
commonly used in small-scale bakeries. They are fitted with either
gate blades for mixing thick cake batters, hooks for mixing doughs,
or whisks to prepare thin batters or cake fillings such as whipped
cream.
Figure 2: Planetary mixer
for use in a bakery. Photo:
Pete Fellows.
Forming pieces
In small-scale bakeries, dough for flat breads, such as chapatti, naan, paratha and tortilla, is rolled
by hand with a rolling pin to form the required shape, thickness and size. Batters for flat products
such as crêpes, injera and pancakes are poured in a thin layer and both types of products are baked
using a hotplate. Other types of doughs and pastries (e.g. for bread, pies, samosas etc. are also
formed by hand, but this is time-consuming and can also produce variable thickness in pieces if
staff are not properly trained. To overcome these problems, rolling bars may be used to roll out the
dough, and dough may be cut and shaped into uniformly sized pieces using a variety of manual or
powered equipment. Rolling bars are strips of metal that have the same thickness as that required in
the sheet of dough: two bars are placed either side of the dough and support a rolling pin so that it
reduces the dough to the same thickness every time. For example, biscuits need to be the same size
and thickness so that they bake to a uniform colour and texture, and there are a large number of
hand-operated biscuit cutters (Figure 3a) that produce different shapes by pressing them into a
sheet of biscuit dough that is rolled to uniform thickness. Alternatively, biscuit dough may be formed
into different shapes using a cookie press (Figure 3b).
a) b)
Figure 3 a) Biscuit cutters, b) cookie press (The Bakers’ Kitchen at www.thebakerskitchen.net).
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