Basic Mixing Processes

In general, there are three phases of mixing in the production of doughs and batters:

These phases overlap one another. For example, the dough begins to form and to develop even before the ingredients are uniformly blended. Nevertheless, thinking of mixing processes in this way helps understand what is going on.

Different products contain different ingredients in various proportions. Compare, for example, French bread dough and cake batter. The first has no fat or sugar, while the second has large quantities of both. The first has a smaller percentage of liquid in the mix, so it is a stiff dough, which bakes into a chewy product, rather than a semiliquid like the cake batter, which bakes into a tender product. Because of these and other differences, the two products require different mixing methods. A main focus of much of the rest of this book is the correct mixing methods for the many products made in the bakery. For each of the mixing methods, one goal is to control the three stages of mixing listed above.