Dough Mixers
Dough Mixers for Home and Commercial Kitchens
Mixing and kneading dough to the right texture can be tricky. This problem is easily eliminated with the use of dough mixers, which are essentials in professional and home baking.
Why You Need a Dough Mixer
It is no small task to mix dough and manually knead it with exact precision. Mixing and kneading the dough shouldn't be overdone if you want to have perfect breads, pie crusts, and pastas. It is also a tedious back-breaking and arm-numbing process. Why stick to manhandling the dough if a dough mixer can do it for you? A dough mixer is more than just a dough mixer. With built-in timers and automatic shut-off systems, there is no need to keep an eye on the clock to time the kneading according to the baking instruction.
A dough mixer uses powerful mixing action to blend, mix and aerate ingredients with consistency to get predictable results. It comes with an open bowl and wire front bowl guard and safety features. A standard unit will always have a spiral dough hook, wire whip, and batter beater and some units may have moisture resistant switches.
There are stand dough mixers and hand dough mixers. The stand dough mixers are for heavy duty baking and are quite big and are commonly used in a commercial scale. But there are several compact models that fit perfectly for the needs of baking hobbyists and the homemaker. The hand dough mixer will also do well for home baking and this gives more flexibility because this can be easily maneuvered to mix the dough thoroughly.
There are drawbacks with stand dough mixers. The dough is worked well on the sides of the mixing bowl and oftentimes misses the bowl's center. But with a hand dough mixer, the entire batch of dough can be kneaded thoroughly.
Advantages and Disadvantages
There are two types of dough mixers - the batch dough mixer and the horizontal dough mixer. It is easy to monitor how the dough is doing with a batch dough mixer because is the usual bowl and mixer duo. You can also manually mix the dough if you spot areas that are mixed by the mixer. On the minus side, it is difficult to maintain the temperature of the mixing bowl (as required by some baking recipes), mixing takes longer because of the slow rotation of the mixer, and there is the difficulty of maneuvering the heavy bowls.
The commercial horizontal dough mixer work faster and the temperature of the mixing bowl can be controlled but there are some inconveniences such as the tendency of the beaters to throw up material to the mixer's roof, and the lid makes it impossible to monitor the progress of the mixing. Cleaning this type of mixer is not easy and requires a full major operation to tidy up.
Brands
Imported and local dough offer more choices. Popular brands are Berkel, Cuisinart, Eudrodib, Globe, KitchenAid, Sunbeam, and Viking. Industrial strength mixers brands provide high speed roller mixers and vertical mixers that can take thousands of pounds of dough mix. Don't lump all dough mixers together. Check each brand carefully whether you are looking for compact dough mixers or commercial heavy-duty dough mixers.