What type of Mixer is better for deposited cookies

Dear Ritabrata,

It is better to use planetary mixer for deposited/wire cut cookies for following reasons.

1.  It will aerate and mix well the high fat cookies which will give you excellent texture

2.  It will not develop gluten rather it will break the gluten any way high fat recipe will not allow to develop gluten but here by planetary action will make the dough smooth and easy to drop or cut by wire.

3.  The disadvantage is you need to keep some no. of mixers to balance the line if it is huge as planetary mixers mostly not available more than 100kgs of capacity or we need to custom made it. 

In case of horizontal mixture

the advantage: It mixes well.  it gives you homogenized mix.  Dust proof etc.,

the Major disadvantage is due to mixer design it promotes gluten development in the dough on standing which not good for wire cut cookies or deposited cookies where you will face shape problem, bite and texture issues of the final product.  Also it will aerate the fat as blade in horizontal mixture is made for only homogeneous mixing.

This is my view.

Dear Ritabrata,

It is a good question. Although planetary/detachable bow mixers are usually mentioned for its gentle action, I do believe that it is possible to make good deposited or wirecut cookie dough in a horizontal mixer, since you take some good decisions: double sigma blade is recommended, as it better aerates the dough. Also, good scaling and delivery of ingredients is very important, specially for sugar and fat. All measures to avoid gluten development are welcome, such as working with cold water jacket,  low dough temperature (close to 20 C, there are several known ways to cool it), no excess ingredient water...

Virtually any type of mixer including High speed mixers, usually required for high throughput Lines, are capable of making good cookie dough.

As others have already commented on it is the amount of gluten development that is critical. Dough temp is critical and I agree that 20C is about the optimum temp.  Crushed or flaked ice can be used in the recipe (replacing dough water) as it is often difficult to achieve that temp by use of mixer water jacket alone.

Deposited cookies are not required strong gluten formation.
So during processing we have to be careful on the factors which promotes strong gluten formation.Like,
1. More water
2. Longer contact time of water with wheat flour
3. Force
4. Temperature
Etc..

Now if we can keep these things at lower level we can get a good soft dough.
Horizontal sigma mixer is suitable where lots of energy is required to form good gluten structure.
But absence of water or very little water with minimum mixing time with flour can give enough quantity of dough suitable for cookies. Obviously maintaining the temperature at 20 d c will help.

For deposited cookies planetary (vertical mixers) are best suited. i used them in 3 different units for different deposited cookies. These mixers have good mixing, temperature control of dough, better dough structure. There are examples where some manufacturers are using horizontal mixers as well, but now mostly biscuit manufactures are using vertical planetary mixers.

for wire cut or deposit cookies.  the planetary mixer is better. because that type of cookies u have to make good premix stage mixing which include egg hold air well and lowering the density. in z mixer also u can make but the homogen premix stage will be more difficult. the mixing time will be high.

https://www.biscuitpeople.com/magazine/post/process-manual-for-cookies