What is your favorite baked product? Is it a perfectly airy and puffy croissant? A delightfully fudgy and moist brownie? A generously cream-filled doughnut? Or maybe all of the above? How can one say that money can’t buy happiness when bakeries sell pure joy packed in freshly baked clouds of goodness?
Just thinking about these delights activates the gurgling stomach-bell that tells you it’s time to hit the local bakery. But have you ever wondered what technology do bakers use to produce those heavenly delicious sweets and savories?
If you’ve hopped on the recent lockdown-inspired home baking trend, you know that turning basic ingredients into a quality finished product is easier said than done. Without professional baking equipment, even the easiest bread recipe can sometimes flop. Not to mention the backaches and kitchen chaos you’re left with after you’re done with the baking experiments.
Importance of Professional Bakery Kitchen Equipment
Even if you’ve honed your baking skills to perfection, it would be naive to think that your good ol’ recipe book and two dexterous hands are enough to produce world-class artisan goods in a commercial setting. Mainly because baking is physically hard work. Without the proper commercial bakery kitchen equipment to facilitate the many tedious and physically demanding tasks, it would be impossible to run a profitable bakery.
High-quality bakery equipment is the backbone of any successful bakehouse. Not only because it saves time and manual labor, but also because it ensures quality consistency. We all have first-hand experience with kitchen disasters. And sometimes, even if you’ve followed the same recipe and used the same ingredients, the finished product hasn’t come along as it was supposed to. Sometimes it’s the humidity levels, other times it’s the room temperature or some other external factor that you can’t control without professional bakery machinery.
Types of Commercial Bakery Machines
A big convection oven and a commercial mixer aren’t the only pieces of equipment needed to start a bakery. From grain mills to control the texture of flour to retarder cabinets to control the rising process, all the way to dividers, rounders, and depositors to keep the dough in shape, there’s a machine for each and every step of the baking process.
Flour Mills
Many bakeries use these machines to mill their own kernels because freshly milled flour is packed full of nutrition and flavor. Flour mills allow bakers to fine-tune the texture of the flour needed for the recipe. While you can certainly bake a cake with a store-bought, all-purpose blend, you won’t get that fine crumb and complex tasting flavor you’re hoping to achieve. Professional flour mills allow you to easily adjust the setting from super-fine to coarse to produce the right flour texture, consistency, and quality.
Silo Systems
Larger bakeries that work with bulk materials use commercial silo systems to provide a clean, safe and watertight internal environment for raw ingredients such as flour, sugar, salt, etc. Thanks to technological advancement, there are now fully automatic silo systems that distribute raw materials with no wastage. Moreover, these automatic flour silos allow for constant and consistent dosing of raw ingredients.
Mixers
No matter how big or small the production line is, every bakery has a heavy-duty, commercial mixer designed to withstand the rigors of everyday use. Could you imagine how tiresome the kneading process would be without these machines? Professional mixers save hours of hassle in the production of bread loaves, bagels, doughnuts, cakes, etc.
Dough Sheeters
Speaking of saving hours of hassle, this next one is key for making dough in large quantities without wasting too much time and effort. Especially useful for busy restaurants and bakeries with a ton of orders, industrial dough sheeters allow bakers to streamline the rolling and kneading process with greater speed and consistency.
Depositors, Dividers, and Rounders
This bunch does much more than processing dough. It allows bakeries to maximize productivity and efficiency while achieving quality consistency throughout the whole production line. These machines allow for highly accurate portioning, shaping, decorating and more. 
Retarder Cabinets
Have you ever messed up a simple, no-knead focaccia bread or basic pizza dough? Most of the time biscuit-like focaccia or dense pizza dough has something to do with the proofing method. To achieve that crunchy crust, cloud-soft texture, and complex flavor, bakeries use retarder cabinets. Retarder cabinets keep the dough at optimal temperature and slow down the rising time for flavors to develop. It’s considered to be a superior proofing method and a secret to producing tasty baguettes, ciabatta, sourdough, and other savory delights.
Ovens
The oven is basically where the magic happens, so naturally, it’s the most important piece of equipment in every bakery. Convection ovens come in a variety of sizes to suit different volumes of production and they’re built to withstand heavy-duty use in the commercial environment. Not only that professional convection ovens provide faster cooking times than their conventional counterparts, but they also distribute the heat more evenly for consistent results.
Steam Cleaners
Industrial steam cleaners are a clever solution for large-scale bakeries, allowing staff to efficiently disinfect and sanitize any area with minimal effort required. They’re easy to move and wheel around, making large surface clean-ups an easy task. Imagine how tedious it would be to clean up bakery surfaces and machines after a ton of orders and have to do it all over again day after day. Luckily, this operation is made far easier and quicker with the professional cleaning equipment available nowadays.
Closing Thoughts
The road to world-class artisanal baked goods is paved with state-of-the-art technology. Producing high-quality pastries takes a lot of time, money, and effort which we often take for granted when we frown upon ‘overpriced’ croissants. So next time you’re wondering whether $6 is worth it for a moment on the lips, try to remember how much goes into turning raw ingredients into this airy deliciousness.