Food & Drink Process & Packaging Issue 20 2018 | Page 28

Memory Lane Cakes Creating Creamy Success with Boone Mixers

Market-leading Memory Lane Cakes in Cardiff , part of the Finsbury Food Group , have replaced old mixing equipment and expanded production capacity with new rotating discharge Horizontal Helical Blade Mixers ( HHBM ) from John R Boone of Congleton , UK . The HHBM mixers are being used to produce a wide range of cake batters , buttercream fillings and toppings that find their way into branded and own label cakes sold in the majority of the UK ’ s major retailers .
It isn ’ t easy , keeping pace with the changing tastes of the British sweettoothed consumer , and the leading supermarkets have a lively programme of product development to continue to excite the shopper with new styles and flavours of cakes . So much so , that Memory Lane have more than a hundred different recipes for buttercream fillings and toppings , and that ’ s before you even get to the batters that are mixed for the cakes themselves .
28 FDPP - www . fdpp . co . uk
In production terms , the ‘ creams ’ present more challenges than the batters . In a domestic kitchen butter would typically be warmed before mixing , but under factory conditions a mixer has to cope with butter in 5kg blocks being added at 8-10 º C . Memory Lane also produce ‘ ganache ’, a mixture of around 60 % chocolate with 30- 40 % cream , which also present the same issues of quickly ‘ conditioning ’ the mixture to a homogenous , smooth paste .
Memory Lane is a very well established company , and many of the mixers on site were more than 30 years old . Paul Riley , Head of Engineering at Memory Lane , wanted to bring the mixing process up to date and looked for a company who could supply mixers cost-effectively and who had a good track record in supplying equipment for this application . Following discussions , John R Boone recommended a Horizontal Helical Blade Mixer ( HHBM ). Paul Riley said : “ We contacted John R