SC - Rosemary... and Thyme

[Robin Carroll-Mann]

"Decker, Terry D." wrote:
> 
> > I have heard, in a non-documentable story, that ladies not having the time
> > or strenght to beat them, used to put the dough through a iron mangle a
> > few
> > times.
> > beatrix
> >
> This doesn't provide the same effect as beating.  It does provide an even
> mechanical kneading.  Professional bakers refer to the device as a brake.
> It was used in the Middle Ages.  The simplest form is a long pole attached
> to the wall above a kneading table with a free swinging connection so the
> baker can use it as a lever to press and squeeze the dough between pole and
> table.
> 
> If you work it long enough, it will break down the gluten and soften the
> dough.  Leaving salt out of the dough speeds up the process.
> 
> Bear

There's a ridged roller break for biscuits that does provide aeration,
it seems. Pictures suggest that the rollers are kind of like long gears
whose teeth don't quite mesh. The rollers effectively shred the dough,
which you then fold up like puff pastry into thirds and repeat the
process until the dough approximates that of beaten biscuit. You can
apparently adjust the height of the upper roller to change pressure on
the dough and the final texture/smoothness.
  
For those who've never seen or done this, there's a particular satiny
sheen to well-made beaten biscuit dough, similar to real pasta except
for the tiny blisters all over the surface and interspersed through the
mass. It seems to me that the roller break wouldn't accomplish this in
the same way, but I suspect that if it absolutely didn't do the job, it
wouldn't have remained a commercially available food prep tool for
upwards of 200 years.

Adamantius    
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com