A food that has accompanied our diets for centuries. An element that over the decades has evolved into something more and more sophisticated and specific.
Brownies are one of the most favourite baked treats in the world, and the first brownie was created at the end of the 19th century in the USA.
Brownies: a Very Popular Baked Treat
Very popular in South East Asia. A crisp, sweet cracker with coconut flavour.
Cookies are made with a simple process: mixing, moulding and baking. Read about ingredients for delicious butter cookies
Danish Butter Cookies comprise five cookies, including deposited and rotary moulded cookies. They are made on dedicated lines with suitable forming, baking and packaging equipment.
Danish Butter Cookies: Process and recipes
Obesity (BMI >30) and related health problems, including coronary heart disease (CHD), is without question a public health concern. The purpose of this study was to modify a traditional biscuit by the addition of vitamin B6, vitamin B12, Folic Acid, Vitamin C and Prebiotic fibre, while reducing salt and sugar.
Development of a Healthy Biscuit: An Alternative Approach to Biscuit Manufacture
A semi-sweet biscuit containing currants. It is baked in strips and may be cut into individual biscuits after cooling.
Garibaldi Biscuits: Kids and Adults Love them Equally
What crosses your mind when thinking of kosher? This article will give you many answers and give you a short story about the kosher market
Marie is a classic hard sweet biscuit characterized by an even, attractive colour, texture, and good volume. Read more about them and the baking process
Marie Biscuit Recipe and Process Guide
Marshmallow - Sweet Treat was originally used in France as a medicine called Pate de Guimauve, previously in had been used by the Romans & Greeks as both a laxative & for healing wounds.
Rotary moulded biscuits are essentially produced from a soft dough.
In many cases, sandwich biscuits that have been baked and cooled are subjected to further treatment in the form of coatings or sandwiching with flavoured materials.
Savoury biscuits are a growing category globally largely due to consumers' interest in new tastes and textures and the desire for healthy options for snacking.
Savoury Biscuits as a Healthy Option?
One things is for certain: sweet biscuits in Eastern Europe are having a good time.
Sweet Biscuits in Eastern Europe: Cracking Their Way
In the biscuit baking process are three major types of oven baking bands for conveying the dough pieces through the oven.
These are the most versatile and widely used biscuit oven bands. They are suitable for crackers, hard biscuits and rotary moulded products, in fact all types of biscuits except soft cookies with high fat contents, where the dough will flow into the holes in the mesh.
When operating a tunnel oven the issue of proper belt tracking will always be on the agenda and of the greatest importance for a good, smooth and trouble-free oven operation.
Cotton belts (woven) are widely used in the biscuit baking industry, and some have been replaced by synthetic materials, but not always with positive results.
Cotton Belts in the Biscuit Industry
The future in Food Safety through Metal Detectable conveyor & power transmission belts within the Biscuit industry
Metal Detectable Conveyor & Power Transmission Belts
The chemical composition, as well as the mechanical properties of the steel belts, has proven its stability and quality in thousands of bake ovens all over the world.
Solid and Perforated Steel Belts for Bake Ovens
The belt cleaning question can often be of greater importance for a bakery than price, belt tracking, maintenance, installation, etc.
The Best Way of Cleaning a Belt is to Avoid Getting Dirty
With tunnel ovens being bigger projects, usually sold and bought as turn-key projects, there is an internationally active top-ten of OEMs followed by another group of somewhat smaller producers, who focus with their strategy on specific areas of the globe.
The Right Tunnel Oven Belt Supplier
Steel belts have been used as a conveying medium in continuously operating bake ovens for more than 90 years and their inherent strength, ruggedness and unparalleled thermal properties means that an operational life of 20 or 30 years is far from unusual.
The secret of a long bake oven belt life – the first part
Regular planned maintenance is key to maximizing the working life of a bake oven belt
The Secret of a Long Bake Oven Belt Life – Maintenance
The rolled baking oven belt, also known in the market as Z-belt, has become the belt type for baking tunnel ovens with the greatest flexibility.
Tunnel Oven Belts: Especially Z-Belts and Their Use
When the raw material arrives to the belt manufacturing plant, it arrives like a band. Before it’s called a belt it has to undergo a number of complicated processes necessary for its future baking mission.
Understand Your Bake Oven Belt
Biscuit baking ovens, generally known as tunnel ovens, are the heart of the biscuit baking process. We hope that you will get a better idea of what tunnel oven is best for your production after reading about different heating methods.
As technology improved the understanding of the baking process, oven manufacturers have modified oven designs from the early brick-and-mortar structures to highly efficient tunnel ovens using multiple forms of heat transfer in one common structure called a hybrid baking oven.
Baking Great Tasting Crackers and Biscuits Using Hybrid Tunnel Ovens
Biscuit baking ovens, generally known as tunnel ovens, have long conveyors which carry the dough pieces through a heated box section baking chamber
How to calculate the best zone lengths for a particular oven specification with examples for two different oven types.
Calculation of oven zone lengths
This paper describes how continuous mixing technology is being used to significantly improve the performance of continuous mesh-band ovens, which otherwise might be replaced because of age or design.
Continuous Mixing Improves Oven Performance
The definition of the dominating conditions in terms of temperature and Relative humidity in areas where Tunnel Ovens are positioned had been and it would be a technical issue where controversial views are expressed.
Definition of Air Ventilation Rates in Areas With Tunnel Ovens
As energy costs increase in almost every country, the efficiency of the oven is of growing importance.
The most important method of heat transfer for crackers and biscuits is radiation. Read more about the difference between Direct Gas Fired oven and Indirect Radiant ovens.
Oven Efficiency - Comparison of Direct and Indirect Fired Ovens
The Heat Recovery System (HRS) uses the waste heat from the burner flues of an indirect fired oven.
Oven Heat Recovery System (HRS)
It is recommended that each oven is given a complete inspection and audit every 12 months. The annual inspection and audit will support the preventative maintenance program and help to ensure excellent oven performance, economy and long life.
The following article is about Direct Gas Fired oven properties
Oven Operation: Direct Gas Fired Oven
The cost of a quality imported baking oven will be approximately 40% of the total cost of a cracker line and up to 50% of the cost of a short dough biscuit line. Many international manufacturers of high-quality large ovens are located in high-cost environments, Europe, the USA, Japan, Korea. Local manufacturing offers important cost savings.
Read about process criteria in the production of sponge cake and what issues should be considered in the process.
A Guide to Industrial Sponge Cake Processing
Learn how to bake biscuits, cookies, and crackers with infrared radiation
Baking biscuits, Cookies and Crackers by Infrared Radiation
Three modes of heat transfer are used in baking biscuits: radiation, conduction and convection.The most important is infrared radiation. Read more
Read more about the whole process, the changes that take place from the dough piece to the biscuit during baking and the factors that influence the baking process and the quality of the end product.
This article describes the steps of forming sandwich biscuits including magazine feeds, cream feed systems, cream stencils, cookie capper machines and final sandwich cooling.
French macarons, to not confuse with "macaroons", are fine, flavored meringue cookies. The cookies are sandwiched together with a very specific and fragile aerated filling which can be ganache, buttercream or jam.
Dosing and Sandwiching Technology for Macarons
Pretzels are a snack food, which have a unique, two-looped, knot shape, a hard, brittle or soft, chewy texture and a brown glossy surface color.
When it comes to biscuit baking ovens, it’s not one size fits all. Tunnel ovens, popular in the 20th century, were little more than insulated and heated cabinets through which a conveyor passed. Band ovens used today are far more sophisticated than the original ovens, however the classic definition of a tunnel, or band oven, remains as valid today as it did then.
How to Bake Cookies and Crackers
X-ray technology can demonstrate even greater versatility through its ability to spot these types of quality issues. It can detect broken, undersized or missing items in packs, as well as deformed product or packaging, or items with cracks or fissures.
How x-ray's versatility can protect the product quality and brand reputation in the biscuit sector
Production parameters are proprietary to each individual factory but can generally be broken down into steps described in this article.
Low-Pressure Extrusion for Great Tasting Baked Snacks
Mechanical emulsification of the fat phase, liquid phase and soluble ingredients (where desirable) will contribute to improved tolerance of the dough during processing.
We have taken an advanced optical technique known as speckle interferometry and applied it to study the very small deformations that evolve when a biscuit is exposed to the room environment after baking.
Examples of semi-sweet biscuits are Marie, Petit Buerre, Rich Tea, Arrowroot, Breakfast biscuits. They are characterised by an even, attractive colour with smooth surface sheen, light texture and good volume.
Process For Semi-sweet Biscuits
How to make chocolate chip cookies? Process for chocolate chip cookies – short cookies with inclusions of chocolate chips or nuts.
Radio Frequency heaters and microwave ovens offer direct or volumetric heating. The simplest form of RF applicator consists of two metal plates that form an electrical capacitor.
In the following article whole process of producing sandwich, biscuits is described.
Sandwich Biscuits: From Cream Application to Cooling of Creamed Sandwiches
Secondary processing of biscuits adds value to finished products and contributes towards increased business profits.
Secondary Processing of Biscuits
Examples of recipes and process for semi-sweet biscuits: Golden Maria, Rich Tea, Le Veritable Petit-Buerre, Petit Buerre, Tostada, Arrowroot, Harvest and Café Noir.
Semi-sweet biscuits: Process and recipes
There are three modes of heat transfer: radiation, conduction and convection. All three heat transfer modes occur during biscuit baking process.
Icing makes many products more attractive to consumers. It gives a product a more impulse reaction to buy. Icings exist in many different forms, not only in name but also in application.
6 Types of Icing and How To Make Them
There are two principal types of batch mixers in the biscuit industry, the Vertical Spindle Mixer and the Horizontal High Speed Mixer. The other systems employed are Single Screw and Twin-Screw Continuous Mixers.
After the dough is mixed it is fed to the forming machines. The arrangement of the dough feed system will depend on the type of dough and the type of forming equipment for the particular product.
Dough Feed Systems for Biscuit, Cookie and Cracker Production Lines
There are several processes which occur during the mixing of the dough. Learn how to mix dough properly and which mixer to use considering type of your dough
During the mixing process, we have to attempt to utilise the structure forming properties of gluten to the full, but, at the same time, we have to overcome an undesirable toughening tendency to which gluten i.e. susceptible.
Dough Mixing as Important Part of Production Process
Forming a continuous dough sheet and then cutting the dough pieces to the required size and shape and printing the design on the surface of the dough pieces is a traditional and common method of forming the dough for a wide variety of biscuits.
Dough piece forming: Biscuit Cutting Machine
Rheology is the study of the manner in which materials respond to applied stress or strain. Basic rheological properties of any material are: strength (solidity), viscosity, elasticity, plasticity.
What are different types of biscuits? Biscuits broadly fall into four categories: crackers, hard sweet biscuits, short dough biscuits, cookies (including filled cookies).
A study on consumer preference and acceptance towards buying reformulated wafers.
Consumer Acceptance and Preference Of New Chocolate and Vanilla-Flavoured Wafer Products
The optimization of the dosage of wafer enzymes is simpler than for other baking application.
Learn more about all the facets of flat wafer processing and details regarding the necessary wafer ingredients
Wafer Ingredients - The processing of flat wafers (1/7):
This is second of seven installments covering all the facets of flat wafer processing, which discusses details regarding the necessary pre-baking processes
The processing of flat wafers (2/7): Pre-baking processes
This is third of seven installments covering all the facets of flat wafer processing, which discusses details regarding the necessary baking specifications
The processing of flat wafers (3/7): Baking specifications
This is the fourth of seven installments covering all the facets of flat wafer processing, which discusses details regarding the very important issue of baking plates.
The processing of flat wafers (4/7): Baking plates I.
This is the fifth of seven installments covering all the facets of flat wafers processing, which continues discussing details regarding the very important issue of baking plates.
The processing of flat wafers (5/7): Baking plates II.
This is the sixth of seven installments covering all the facets of flat wafer processing, which continues discussing details regarding post-baking procedures.
The processing of Flat Wafers (6/7): Post Baking Procedures
This article continues dicussing details regarding post-baking procedures, specifically cooling, cutting and conditioning
The Processing of Flat Wafers (7/7): Cooling, Cutting and Conditioning
The essential ingredients for success in molded en-robed wafer products is a Grist that will withstand the rigorous automatic production machinery, and give a crisp wafer with a pleasant flavor and bite.
The Crispiest Wafer, Grist, Recipe and Method
Checking is a phenomenon which occurs when small hairline cracks develop in biscuits and crackers.
What can be problematic in Cream Cracker making and how can we fix it?
Cream Cracker Faults & Remedies
This article provides the complete information required to make vegetable crackers.
Process Manual for Vegetable Crackers
How to make sesame crackers? The complete process, a different version of a recipe, critical ingredients and sesame seed application.
This article brings comprehensive insights about the snack crackers.
In this feature, we will look at fermented cracker production and the influence of lamination on this process.
The Lamination Process in Fermented Crackers
This article describes the complete process about how to make three layer crackers.
Insights on the acrylamide in food. What is it and why are there measures for reducing it in production?
Acrylamide is a compound that can be created during the baking process of in particular grain and potato based products. The discovery in 2002 that some cooked foods contain Acrylamide attracted significant attention to its possible biological effects.
Acrylamide is a chemical that can form in carbohydrate rich foods during high-temperature cooking processes, such as frying, roasting, and baking.
Acrylamide in Fried and Baked Food
Unpleasant flavours develop as a result of oxidation particularly of fats.
Development of off-Flavours in biscuits
Surface active agents are chemical materials which alter the surface properties of the material they contact.
Emulsifiers in the baking industry
The following text summarizes considerations for the use and replacement of SMBS and gives an example how to reduce or omit this chemical in a given formula.
Enzymes as Alternative to Sodium Metabisulfite
In biscuits fat (or margarine) is one of the main ingredients besides flour and sugar.
Incorporation of different cereal (i.e., wheat flour, soya flour, pea flour) will enrich the nutritional value of the cookies. These types of baked products can go a long way in supplying the required quantities of dietary fiber and protein.
One of the principle ingredients for biscuits is wheat flour. First of all, let us define which is the best flour for making biscuits, the answer is simple: the best flour is constant flour.
How to get the best flour for your biscuits
This article looks at what you can do to reduce the salt, fats in biscuits and sugar content of biscuits, and how to boost the level of fibre.
There are many challenges to improve the nutritional profile of our diet, including a reduction in fat and sugar content and enhancement of fibre.
Improving the Nutritional Profile of Biscuits – Part 1
This article will look at ways to reduce the sugar content of biscuit cream fillings. In subsequent articles, we will discuss routes to reduce the sugar content and increase the fibre content of biscuits.
Improving the Nutritional Profile of Biscuits – Part 2
The main ingredients in the biscuits making process are flours, sugars and fats. To these ingredients, various small ingredients may be added for leavening, flavour and texture.
Ingredients used in baking industry have different characteristic and require special environment for storage and there are different ways in handling with them.
Ingredient Storage and Handling
76% of biscuit consumers rank taste as the most important factor when buying biscuits.
Here it is to distinguishing between non-chemical and chemical leaveners. Learn more about their function
Leavening of Cookies and Crackers
In this article, we are going to talk about milk as one of the most prominent ingredients not just in the biscuit industry, but the food industry as well.
Milk Ingredients in Cereal Products
The presence of mineral oil hydrocarbons (MOH) is seen as a cross-contaminant issue related primarily to migration from food contact material, but also the intentional and authorized uses of certain additives contribute to the exposure to mineral oils.
Mineral oil hydrocarbons: Impact on biscuits
Sugar is a major ingredient for biscuits used in various types of biscuits, apart from imparting a sweet taste it also serves various functional properties in the processing of the biscuit dough as well in the structural and organoleptic properties of the baked biscuits.
The Functional Properties of Sugar in Biscuits
When implementing an automatic OEE system you have made the first step into the Industry 4.0 world of interconnectivity, remote observation, remote support.
How to start measuring OEE and what you can do with these numbers to improve the output of your line.
How to Start Measuring OEE and Define What and Where Are Your Problems?
The first question is: where do we stand? Is our performance poor medium or good, and the next is, where can we improve?
What Can OEE - Overall Equipment Effectiveness - Do for You?
In this article we want to introduce TPM and 5S as the methodology to improve the performance of your production line, resulting in a higher OEE.
Where to Start Mending: 5S and TPM - What Can OEE Do for You?
If there are more than 1 production lines, I suggest calculating for each one which is the actual OEE. Which line has the highest profitability, which line must be prioritized? Now concentrate on that line only.
Where to Start With the Overall Equipment Effectiveness?
Packaging is one of the largest cost factors. Developing the optimal combination of pack style and material is a challenge.
How to Find the Optimal Packaging for Your Product
In order to determine what packaging should be used, first consider the type of product that you are producing.
Steps to Determining Packaging
The most common silos types - Storage and dosing of bulk materials in bakeries
Packaging machinery negotiations are usually based on technical specification, financial condition and price. Supplier references and reputation, as well as financial solidity and engineering capability to meet customer expectation, are important as pre-conditions for decision makers.
Total Cost of Ownership on Packaging Machinery
How to Start a Bakery Business? Setting up a bakery: Products and Bakery Business Plan.
If a baker wants to develop new products and to successfully modify formulations as ingredient costs alter, to check and develop the manufacturing processes he or she should have a well-equipped laboratory and test bakery.
Equipment Needed for the Test Bakery
The third article focuses on equipment choices when setting up a bakery.
Setting up a bakery - Equipment Selection
This series will cover a various topics around setting up a Bakery, and in particular an industrial size factory making bakery products.
Setting up a Bakery: Product Portfolio and Product Designs
This is where we covered the external factors in relation to microbiological spoilage: temperature, humidity, atmosphere and bacterial competition.
External factors influencing shelf life of bakery products
This article will focus on the internal factors that influence microorganisms and thus shelf life of bakery products
Internal factor influencing shelf life of bakery products
This article is going to give you an answer: What is the shelf life of food and its meaning? Importance of shelf life and what can impact on prolonged shelf-life?
This article is the fourth in a series about shelf life, where we predominantly focus on the microbiological part of spoilage of bakery products.
The Hurdle Technology: Shelf life part 4
The airport retail is a fast-growing, nuanced and insightful sector, where creativity, communication, emotional intelligence, cultural differences & subtleties, and market distinctions play a huge role for brands and their sales and marketing excellence.
Airports as One of the Fastest Developing Brand Touchpoints
The design of the cutting rolls and moulding rolls and dies for deposited cookies determine the pattern of dough pieces on the oven band.
6 Things You Should Consider Before Buying a Production Line for Biscuits, Cookies and Crackers
Buying a Production Line for Biscuits, Cookies and Crackers
In the past decade, we have seen a real transformation in retail, with eCommerce channel becoming not just one of sales channels but a main channel for many.
B2B eCommerce - The Time is Now
We do want to go into the issue of center lining and quick change-over, SMED
Only knowledgeable people will be able to support management’s effort to improve the performance. Management can set goals, but the production team must realize this. It requires knowledge to be able to be creative in finding solutions for problems.
The combustion of natural gas is a major source of greenhouse gases which are causing climate change. This has become a major concern throughout the world. This situation makes it essential that we seek ways to reduce the carbon footprint of the biscuit baking industry.
Climate Change - Energy for Biscuit Baking
Countries where electricity was the main energy source, for example, China and countries where diesel oil was used for example India and the Middle East now use gas as the lowest cost energy source.
This article describes why product specifications are essential business documents, how they are constructed and populated, and how they are controlled and applied. It also lists some common mistakes made when attempting to create documents.
Finished Product Specifications – Critical Documents for Successful Businesses
In generally most of the west and central African population, used biscuits as breakfast rather than snack for teatime. Eating pattern varies depends on the countries mainly most of the school student use as their breakfast and some use as snack during the working hours.
Introduction of Biscuit Industry in West and Central Africa
Financial Analysis should be made, based on the residual value of the current equipment, as well as the benefits that the investment upon a new line would be gained by the Enterprise.
Investment Analysis in Decision Making
Nowadays to get optimum fuel efficiency, productivity, and better output most of the companies selecting higher width moulding unit which starts from 1mt to 2mt.
Line Weight Management in Moulding Unit
A variety of snacks based on potato flakes and modified starch
As it is possible that not all new launches will necessarily succeed in the market, so using outsource R&D could reduce the risk of high assets and elevated fixed cost and also the possibility of no completion success.
There are two main types of commercial weaning foods, cereal porridge and infant rusk. The rusk has many advantages. It is a dry piece product, like a biscuit, and is resistant to microbiological contamination.
Securing Children's Health: Infant Rusks
It has been a common sense that both set ups are requiring a well organized in-house Pilot Plant Unit, preventing the Enterprise from constant stoppages of regular production, especially when new products are relying within a conceptual base.
Setting Up Pilot Plant Facilities for Biscuits – Crackers
Biscuit manufacturing companies find themselves today under pressure due to increasingly complex environment, both internal as well as external, which requires innovative approaches to provide continuous improvements of quality, efficiency and cost optimization.
Smart Cost Optimization in Biscuit Manufacturing
In its 2017 Megatrends flagship analysis that highlighted the key demand drivers across FMCG categories in the next decades, Euromonitor International emphasized premiumization as one of the eight main forces affecting consumer behavior.
Sweet biscuits premiumisation: The case for ancient grains
The biscuit industry now uses gas as the fuel for baking in almost every country. Natural gas is widely available and economic. However, this gives our industry a large carbon footprint.
The Biscuit Industry Carbon Footprint
Service ... or mechanics, electricians and software ... commissioning engineers or technicians, such as burning technician, are often called at the last second, desperate phone calls from the customer because the oven or line from days of production suddenly stops, sending alarms that cannot be reset or worse still need spare parts unavailable in the short time.
The maintenance plan has to be respected and executed
Humans are the only beings that require years of training and education to be able to function in this world. What OEE Can do for you?
The word ‘medium’ can often suggest an element of compromise, whether that be ‘taking the middle course’ in a discussion, or asking for a steak that is neither rare nor well-done.
Why ‘Medium’ Should Mean No Compromise on Performance
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