At the industrial bakery where he was previously employed, he already worked partly with the machinery made in Markt Einersheim. “As a baker, you know the name FRITSCH anyway, because almost every baker usually has a ROLLFIX in operation,” Tim asserts. When he saw the job advertised at FRITSCH, he seized the opportunity to transition from a producer to a developer of pastries. He sees a clear trend towards higher quality in the raw materials used and thus of the finished products as well.
“Most pastries are based on a sweet dough, even if the final product is ultimately savoury. Puff pastry is a good example of this. In Germany particularly, it was only used for making sweet snacks until just a few years ago, whereas today it is used with all kinds of vegetable, fish or other savoury fillings,” Tim relates. The most common doughs are puff and Danish pastry doughs for croissants and turnovers, leavened dough for whirls and seasonal pastries, and sometimes even shortcrust dough.
Making puff pastry involves a process called booking: the base dough itself contains little to no fat at all, but then it is folded over many times with layers of fat between the individual dough layers. “The dough becomes light and flaky through a purely physical process due to the alternating layers of fat and dough,” Tim explains. “Danish pastry is made similarly, but usually consists of fewer layers. Instead, it contains a small amount of yeast that helps achieve the necessary lightness,” the dough technologist continues. “With leavened pastries, no fat is folded in; rather the fat is already added into the base dough. In this case, the yeast alone is responsible for the light consistency of the pastry.” The base recipes for the pastries also differ from one country to another. Danish pastry products are very popular in Western Europe, while puff and leavened pastries are the stronger preference in Eastern Europe. “For me, one of the most unusual combinations I have come across so far was a puff pastry with a minced meat and cabbage filling,” says Tim. “That was for an Eastern European customer, of course,” he adds with his friendly laugh.
