Dough preparation machines are indispensable for bakeries, pizzerias, sandwich shops, restaurants, and other food establishments that serve pastry products since the dough is one of the fundamental elements of most meals as a base, as a side, or as the dish itself. Therefore, all food-serving establishments are recommended to equip their kitchens with suitable dough preparation machines to ensure a high-quality end product that will appeal to the taste and zest of the customers.
Why do You need Dough Preparation Machines?
When you check the history of dough making, you will see that dough preparation is a centuries-old kitchen ritual that can be summarized in four main steps, as follows:
- Combining the ingredients
- Mixing or kneading dough
- Leaving it to proofing
- Spreading, Shaping
These procedures are pretty time-consuming duties and need intensive manual labor that will keep your employees occupied with dough-related jobs. However, bakeries, pizzerias, or restaurants do not have much time or labor that they can spare for these, particularly when they need to catch up with flooding orders.
However, you have an excellent choice, like dough preparation machines that stand out as the ultimate solution to your needs in your business with their smartly-designed features, robust structures, and high-volume production capacities.
Dough prep equipment will help your business develop and grow by;
- Accelerating the dough preparation procedure
- Providing a large-scale volume of production
- Enabling consistent shape, texture, and quality
- Lowering labor costs by eliminating manual labor
- Enriching your menu range with new products
- Saving your personnel from backaches and arm injuries that may result from long time kneading
- Providing you more space in your kitchen with versatile dough preparation tools.
Types of Dough Preparation Machines
Dough preparation machines are offered in a diversified range with an extensive dough prep equipment inventory. Hence, you can be sure that they will help you show your customers a stable taste and quality with your products and dishes while allowing your staff to get their job done with higher efficiency and greater ease.
1. Commercial Mixers
Commercial mixers are often-used commercial kitchen equipment, which is also of great use for dough prep. These dough preparation machines are made from stainless steel and have enough sturdiness to handle large batches of dough to mix them for the best texture. These units are equipped with bowl guards for secure running and speed controls for better mixing.
Commercial Dough Mixers
Commercial dough mixers are designed with a hook mixer which is suitable for mixing large batches of the batter or dough and for handling the tough dough. The spiral mixers have stationary spiral, and the bowl revolves around quickly preparing the dough. These knead dough machines can handle batches of up to 800 Ibs., which will be enough for busy restaurants, hotels, and even bakeries.
These dough preparation machines can be purchased as floor models that may also come with additional hydraulic lifts to provide easy loading-unloading of the bowl. Or, if you have limited space in your kitchen, you can opt to buy a countertop commercial dough mixer that is also powerful and robust enough to handle your daily dough preparation needs.
Planetary Mixers
Commercial planetary mixers have a rotating agitator that imitates the revolving of the planets around the sun and, therefore, provides additional versatility to mix batters, eggs as well as dough.
2. Proofing Cabinets
Proofing is crucial for your dough’s taste, texture, and quality. Therefore, the dough must be preserved in a controlled environment with suitable conditions to ferment and reach its best state after kneading/mixing. Dough fermentation machines are manufactured for this purpose. These proofing cabinets are designed to provide optimal temperature and humidity levels to achieve the best fermentation process to make the most out of dough.
3. Dough Shaping Machines
After you have completed your dough prep with the commercial mixers and keep the dough in the proofing cabinet, the dough is ready to take its appropriate shape to make delicious foods, ranging from crispy pizzas and soft buns to varieties of bread.
Dough Rounder Machines and Dough Divider Machines
Dough rounder machines and dough divider machines are designed to enable you to perfectly and consistently portion your dough to have an equally divided dough ball.
Dough divider machines are must-have dough preparation machines to facilitate the portioning of large dough batches into the desired size. These units are perfect for dividing the dough into smaller pieces which will turn into buns, bread, or pizza.
After dividing your large batch into small dough pieces, they need to be rounded to have easy-to-handle pizza balls, which can be spread/sheeted into large round dough sheets or flatbreads. However, it requires much time to round them one by one at hand, while the dough rounders can handle this in seconds and reach a volume of thousands.
If you have limited space, you can obtain a combined model of these dough preparation machines. Dough divider and rounder machines can both divide the dough and round them afterward within a shorter period by leaving you space in your kitchen flour while lessening the need for additional machine costs.
Dough Sheeter Machines and Dough Roller Machines
Dough sheeter and dough roller machines are designed to shorten the dough spreading time, which takes a lot of time to make manually. Dough sheets are highly needed in every pizza shop, bakery, restaurant, or hotel to enable them to flatten the dough balls.
These dough preparation machines are available in varying capacities and sizes, and you can make a selection between the floor dough sheeters and the countertop dough spreader models, depending on your daily dough handling volume. They enable the operator to adjust the dough sheet thickness, and you can quickly and comfortably prepare pizza bases or thin dough sheets for your recipes.
Dough roller machines are compact countertop dough spreading machines and can be placed onto your dough prep table within your reach. You or your staff can rapidly lengthen and spread dough balls to make flatbreads or lavash.
4. Bread Moulder Machines
Another dough preparation machine that will be handy to have in your commercial kitchen or bakery is a bread moulder. These dough prep machines are designed to shape the dough balls into perfectly rolled bread loaves. After preparing your batch in the bread dough machines, the only thing you need to do is to transfer the batch into one of these bread moulder machines, and you will have perfectly shaped bread loaves.
5. Dough Presses and Pasta Makers
Dough presser machines are practical dough shaping machines that will enhance dough shaping efficiency with easy-to-use design features, such as heated plates or an automatic dough press. They can operate effectively and reliably to serve as a practical way of making pizza, tortillas, or dough sheets.
Pizza Dough Presses
A pizza has an iconic round shape that attracts people to have a slice. Even though spreading a pizza base at hand is tempting for customers, it is impossible to catch up with the flood of pizza orders in high-volume restaurants, hotels, or pizzerias.
Therefore, you need proper dough preparation equipment to speed up this process by maintaining a consistent shape, size, and steady taste. Pizza dough presses feature heated circular presses, and thus, it will be sufficient to place dough balls between them. After seconds of application, the dough pressing machine will flatten the pizza base, and the round pizza bases are ready to go for the pizza sauce and ingredients.
Tortilla Presses and Tortilla Machines
Tortillas and tacos are delicious items on any menu, especially when it is served fresh. Therefore, you need an efficient and quick system for preparing tortillas even during rush hours. Tortilla machines and tortilla presses are particularly designed dough preparation equipment to enable an effective method of making perfectly round-shaped tortillas within seconds to keep you supplied with your tortilla oven with fresh tortillas.
Commercial Pasta Makers and Extruders
Commercial pasta makers and pasta extruders will bring a mouthwatering taste to your menu with an enhanced variety of pasta that is made in-house. A commercial pasta maker will quickly turn a dough ball that you will place inside the machine into the properly shaped, flattened, or cut pasta varieties to allow you to make lasagna, noodles, or pasta from the very fresh dough.
6. Additional Food Preparation Equipment
Commercial Bread Slicers
Commercial bread slicers are not directly a dough preparation machine, but it is a piece of time-saving equipment that provides a secure way of cutting bread loaves into equal slices. These units can slice different types of bread, and you can select the available models to make slices for sandwiches, sides, or toast.
Digital Water Meters
The amounts of the ingredients that you use in your dough recipes are vital to reaching the high-end product quality. Digital water meters will enable you to control the amount of water you use and its temperature to ensure your mix is in total compliance with your recipe.
Breading Machines
When you need to prepare a large amount of breaded chicken, fish, or other products, the breading machines will easily help you out. These dough preparation machines are designed to gently rotate the battered products inside breading to coat them with breadcrumbs for the typical crispy breading.
Conclusion
Dough preparation machines are among the primary items that you must check when starting or running a food serving business. Dough or batter is always a part of the daily workflow in a commercial kitchen, and it really takes time to prepare and process the dough. Thus, the wisest thing to do is to enrich your commercial kitchen inventory with the right and suitable dough preparation machines to streamline your bakery production.
