Abstract

A method of preparing dough for bread or fancy cakes can be carried out more quickly, precisely and reliably, dispensing with subjective judgements of the dough during and/or after the mixing, in such a manner that the state of the dough is monitored with a measuring probe and that values for the further addition of measured amounts of a main constituent such as flour or in particular water are determined from measured values which are obtained at quite specific characteristic measuring moments, in order to obtain an optimum dough which has the required properties in a reproducible manner, regardless of the varying capacity of the flour to absorb water. Apparatus designed for this purpose contains a detecting element to pick up the nature of the material being mixed or the dough and an electrical evaluation device which in turn acts on a proportioning device for the addition of a main constituent of the dough, such as water for example, but can also be used to control or regulate the temperature of the added water the speed of rotation of the tools and further machine parameters.