Baking & Snack - September 2014 - 107

EQUIPMENT
Cake Processing

Tastefully

Depositing

As cake bakers look to save time and
money, batter depositors juggle accuracy,
gentle handling and speedy changeovers.

by Charlotte Atchley

As the rest of the baking industry tries to navigate the
waters of gluten-free, reduced-sugar and whole grains,
cakes remain an indulgence, impervious to such betterfor-you trends. Instead, cake bakers are finding success
by diversifying their product lines and pouring their energy into using high-quality ingredients to make their
cakes as decadent as possible.
These trends toward increasing variety and relying
on more indulgent ingredients mean the basic needs of
cake depositing are more important than ever. As bakers opt for pricey ingredients, they need depositors to
be as efficient and precise as possible so as not to waste
that precious batter. While bakers are diversifying their
product ranges, changeovers and sanitation have to become even faster to reduce downtime. With all these
automation improvements, bakers cannot afford to
sacrifice product quality, so equipment must be able to
handle a wide variety of viscosities and delicate batters
without damaging them.

Depositing on target
When it comes to depositing cake batter, accuracy is the
baker's No. 1 priority. The proper amount of batter must
hit the pan at the right place every time, or else the baker loses money. This is even more important today with
the run-up in ingredient costs. "With ingredient costs
rising in almost every sector - sugar, flour, fat, butter -
the importance of weight control with piston depositors
has never been more critical," said Stewart Macpherson,
vice-president, sales and marketing, Unifiller, Delta, BC.
Traditionally depositors are air-driven with operators taking measurements and manually adjusting the

depositor's mechanical components. To remove this
opportunity for human error and inaccuracy, Unifiller
moved to a completely computer-controlled system for
its multi-piston depositor, the MultiStation. At the computer terminal, the operator can select the weight of the
deposit as well as speed and number of rows in the pan.
The computer adjusts the machine to continuously deposit batter according to those parameters.
While some systems rely on gravity and pressure
from the depositor to deliver consistent weights, the
Handtmann system employs vacuum technology on the
infeed side so it can exercise more control over weight.
According to Cesar Zelaya, bakery technology manager,
Handtmann, Lake Forest, IL, the servo-driven multilane
flow divider accurately portions every depositing cycle
across a wider range of specific gravities.
The batter density comes into play when trying to
maintain consistent deposit weights. "If the specific
gravity varies, then the deposit weights will vary," said
Bob Peck, E.T. Oakes Corp., Hauppauge, NY. To control the batter's specific gravity and make the necessary
adjustments, E.T. Oakes employs mass flow meters for
both the incoming batter and air injection. This allows
an operator to adjust the amount of air injected in the
batter and control the final desired density. "Without
the mass flow meter, we don't know for sure what the
incoming batter flow and initial specific gravity actually
are," Mr. Peck said. Exercising that much control over
the batter's final density helps maintain weight accuracy
once the product reaches the depositing manifold.
"Our cake depositing manifold has the ability to adjust the amount of distribution to each pan cavity. The

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