Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-10-29
A CRACKER BAKERY.
AN EXTENSIVE BRANCH OF THE
 STEAM BAKING BUSINESS

C
 STEAM BAKING BUSINESS
 Mixing the Dough--worlx of the Dough
 Presser-Shoveling the Batch Into the
 Reel Oven-cooking the Crackers-PacIs-
 ing-Proparing Cakes. Etc.
 The first step in the manufacture of crack CTS, which is by far the most extensive branch of the steam baking business, is to mix the dough. A half barrel or so of flour is dumped into a wooden vat and lard, yeast, salt and possibly one or two other ingredients to vary the grade of the manufactured product, are mixed with the mass. Several buckets of water are thrown in, and white aproned kneader, with square canvas bakers cap on his head, rolls up his sleeves to the armpits and pitches in. When he has agitated the mass sufficiently it is allowed to stand over night and 'rise" Not only one, but num- Der of vats are filled with embryonic crack CTS and left to ferment in the same way.
 In the morning the hands come to work at 8 o'clock and begin the task of the day. The dough is exhumed in masses from the depths of the receptacles and flung down chute to lower floor. The dough presser, a machine whose name expresses its use, absorbs the sticky mass into it's great iron jaws and rolls it out into cakes about an inch thick by forcing it through an elongated aperture of the required diameter. It is now ready for the cutter, which machine divides the dough into squares of proper dimensions ready for baking.
 The process of division is very simple. The dough is forced under q roller, which presses it to the proper thickness and runs it under stamper worked by steam. The stamper cuts the flat cake into squares and dents the surface with number of little depressions. The firm name of the proprietors of the factory is also stamped upon the top. The thin ribbons of surplus dough which run along the margin of the batch are removed by the hands of two small boys who occupy seats by the machine.
 The next process is to shovel it into the oven. The reel oven is the variety most used for baking crackers, which are considered a comparatively coarse product. An immense pair of wheels connected by transverse bars of iron are suspended over a seething brick furnace in such a manner as to be easily re- volyed by the hand of an operator. A num- Der of huge flat sheets of iron are suspended from the transverse rods somewhat after the fashion of a scale pan hanging from beams end. One of the sheets is kept constantly at the mouth of the aperture in the side of the oven where the unhaked crackers are to be put ln TOT Dak1ng.
 COOKING THE CRACKERS
 An operator with large, thin wooden shovel runs the flat blade under section of the cut and pressed dough- and placing it upon the iron sheet, suddenly withdraws it. This process is repeated until the sheet Is filled, when a turn of the wheel shoots it out over the heated coals In the furnace, and at the same time brings the next sheet, whose freight has been cooking for some time and is now entirely done before the mouth of the orifice. A huge wooden rake, operated by hand, pulls the crackers off into the baskets, where the force of the fall breaks the thin strips of brittle bread which bind them to- gether, and they are full hedged ready baked crackers.
 If the crackers were packed into boxes i'm mediately after being raked from the oven, they would ''sweat" and retain an enlarged thickness given them by the excessive heat. So they are dumped upon large, fiat counters to dry before they are put into the labeled boxes or barrels 1n which they are sold This is the usual process employed in the manu- facture of crackers In some of tho larger factories they are raked off when cooled into troughs with sliding bottoms, which empty them into chutes by which they are conveyed up or down stairs. Nearly all of the reel ovens have the same capacity. Twelve fiat | SheetS are the usual complement, and each sheet is just large enough to contain six rows of seventy-two crackers each, Each row is Q spadeful Each oven, therefore, contains 1,5S4 crackers baking at one time. The large houses have from three to five ovens. If these ovens are operated, the number baking at one time would be 5, ,752
 The finest grades of cakes, such as maca- rooms, citron, cream and jelly rolls, are too delicate to be trusted always to reel ovens, and in many factories are baked in the old fashioned Dutch affairs, which impart such delicious flavor to the cookingof our grand mothers. The methods of preparing these cakes differ widely. Chocolate icing is put on by dropping the cake upon Its flat surface into bucket of liquid chocolate and scrap ing QG the surplus from the edges with 0 knife. Stampers of proper design will i'm print upon dough almost any variety of de vice Horsecakes, so dean to the heart of the rural urchin, are cut out in large num- bers from molasses dough by a number of stamps operated at once. The devices Ter sorted to in the manufacture of the almost numberless grades of cakes and crackers which are turned out by a first class factory areof endless ariety.-Baltimore Herald.