Industrial Bakery Equipment For Tortillas

Tortillas are a thin flatbread typically made from finely-ground corn or wheat. Tortillas can be incorporated into sweet or savory dishes, and have been uniquely adapted to everything from ice cream tacos to thin-crust pizzas! Most often, however, they provide the perfect carrier for well-known Mexican dishes such as tacos, burritos, tostadas and enchiladas.

Tortillas made from maize have a centuries-long history in Mexican and Central American culture. Traditionally, these could have consisted of a variety of kernels in naturally-occuring colours from white, yellow, red, or blue. Today, white and yellow tortillas made from flour are most common.

The process for making tortillas is similar to the baking process of bread, involving mixing, kneading and rolling dough. This versatile flatbread is simple in ingredients, typically consisting only of flour, salt, shortening or lard, water, and occasionally baking powder.

Once the ingredients have been mixed and the dough made, a surface should be lightly floured and the dough kneaded for several minutes. Giving the doughtime to rest is an important step in the process of making tortillas. This allows for full absorption of the water and for the dough to “relax.” Doing so ultimately makes the dough easier to roll, resulting in a thinner and better-textured finished product. Finally, after being thinly rolled out, it should be baked for only tens of seconds on each side.

Achieving a perfect consistency for the mixture can be challenging and take practice, as can knowing for how long and at what temperature to bake it. The tortillas should have some bubbles and light brown spots on the surface. Enjoying tortillas that are soft and tender or more crispy is a personal preference, but if they feel stiff it means they’ve been cooked for too long and/or at too high of a heat.

Dunbar Systems Inc. can provide industrial bakery equipment for mass production of tortillas while still maintaining the perfect quality and consistency of individually handmade tortillas. We follow a carefully-planned and streamlined system to understand your current business process before formulating a customized solution to help you achieve your production goals. We have an inline process that can be used separately or integrated in an adaptable production line. Our project managers and engineers monitor the building of equipment and will be on site to ensure proper installation and on-time delivery.