Keeping up with new ingredients and technology can be challenging, especially when we spend a large amount of our time in the kitchen.

Advancements in technology means we have access to intelligent machinery which, if embraced, will change the way we work. Cooking, baking, rolling and freezing is made easy with modern technology now available across a broad range of machinery. This is giving us a more consistent product that can extend shelf life, save on labour and reduce overheads.

I have selected three products currently in the market that I believe would be valuable to any bakery/patisserie for their innovation and technology.

Firstly, for bakeries creating yeast based products, I am impressed with the Panem Retarder Prover Cabinet.

This retarder prover has a double wall design non-direct air flow circulation that eliminates product skinning and uneven proving, as well as a blocking system that prevents over proving.

All bread doughs including sweet fruit doughs, croissants and Danish pastries are effectively retarded and then gently proved to perfection.

The advantage of retarder provers is the ability to place the product into the prover up to 24 hours in advance, and program the unit to start proving so your products are ready as your bakers arrive for work. This offers more attractive working hours for your staff and a consistent quality of product.

Next on my list is the Robot Cook. Lots of kitchens have become familiar and work with the Thermomix, which was actually created for the domestic market. The Robot Cook is a commercial grade product that is more suited to a commercial kitchen. It has a 3.7 litre capacity where the Thermomix only holds 2.2 litres. The top temperature on the Thermomix is 100°C and the Robot Cook goes up to 140°C.

What does the Robot Cook do that would be advantageous to you and your business? It can emulsify, grind, mix, stir, chop, blend and knead, amongst the many other functions you can achieve in the one bowl. Part of the technology is an anti-vapour lid wiper that ensures perfect visibility during processing. It also still functions as a Blixer 3.

This is cutting edge technology that will save your business time and money, helping you create products such as custards, cake mixes, tempering chocolate, doughs, pie fillings, pastry and much more.

I can’t discuss technology without bringing to your attention the ultimate in oven technology: the UNOX Baker Top MIND MAPS. The first oven of its kind worldwide, it can be monitored remotely and be connected to the internet. You can program the oven to give you variable cooking temperatures and fan speeds while baking a product, which for products such as macarons and choux pastry is the ultimate in baking. The oven also has built in sensors so if you are baking a larger volume of a product you have baked previously, the oven will self-adjust its cooking times and temperatures for consistency.

This oven is the most complete display touch visual language that has ever been created for an oven. With the pen, you can draw your cooking processes and save them in the program. This UNOX oven also has pre-programmed bake times for a wide range of products already programmed into the oven. Normally a combi oven would not be considered for baked goods such as croissant, Danish and breads, but with this new technology the results speak for themselves with a more consistent baked product than what you can achieve in a deck oven.

This is just some of the great new technology available to pastry chefs and we’ll highlight more innovative equipment as they become available.

Check out more at TheGlassKnife.com.

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