In terms of producing bakery products such as biscuits, cookies and cake, it has strict requirement to the selection of materials, mixing process, forming and baking technics. The first critical process is for the selection of materials, it determines the shape and structure of the dough, which indirectly result in different texture and characteristics of the baked product for their different production process. In the following paragraphs, there will be introductions of the dough ingredients for the major categories of biscuits in the market and analysis of their features and function.

Hard biscuit

Hard biscuit is one of the most common type of biscuits and snacks. Its dough contains maize flour, invert syrup, granulated sugar, acid calcium phosphate, shortening, protease. It has low sugar and fat, but higher volume of water and flour. The ingredients after mixing could develop a strong gluten, which allows the dough to be extensible and elastic. It could be kneaded and pressed to dough sheet for rotary cut forming. The final baked product will be hard and crispy and more chewy.

Soft biscuit

For soft biscuit, its main feature is crunchy and soft, easily break, but it brings more satiety than hard biscuit and cracker. It has lower water content and flour, but higher volume of sugar and fat. It is much sweeter than hard biscuit as well. Its dough cannot develop gluten and therefore it is not extensible, but in a loose status. This type of dough cannot be pressed to dough sheet with its loose structure, so it is directly feed into cavity on the moulding roll and form its shape and pattern. Although this simplifies the procedure for the forming of soft biscuit, it has higher requirement to the thickness control and demoulding of the rotary moulder.

Cracker

In Chinese market, East Asia and Africa, cracker is a very popular biscuit among all other categories. It has also diversified from traditional thin cracker to thick cracker with different types of coating and seasoning. It contains wheat flour, ammonia, sodium bicarbonate and yeast, which helps to develop gluten and the elasticity of the dough structure. The feature of sodium bicarbonate is mainly in the baking process, it allows the cracker after lamination to expand and build the structure when it is heated inside the baking chamber. It is a key element for the light and crunchy texture of the cracker. Compare to hard biscuits, it will not have crumbs remain in the mouth because they are easily melted.

Cookie

In comparison to other biscuit product, cookie has a higher price in the market, mainly because of the use of its ingredients. It contains a very high volume of fat and sugar, mostly adopts butter for the fat, but shortening is also another option. For cookie, it has various forms of its dough and different dough has corresponding forming methods. It could be divided to two categories. For dough mass that is deposited through the nozzles, it is usually softer and liquidated like cream, need to be mixed by planetary mixer with high speed mixing; for dough that is extruded and need to be cut by steel wire or other cutter, it is harder cookie dough, more like soft dough, could be mixed by horizontal mixer.