Commercial baking, creaming shortening

[Ivattavi]

Heyo, I work in a commercial bakery where we serve about 1500 people daily. We don't stock any butter, they only order vegetable shortening and vegetable oil for us so that's all we have.
The problem is the the shortening comes in these huge 50 pound blocks and we have trouble getting it broken down to cream the fat with the sugar using our big industrial planetary mixers.
Even at room temperature this shortening is very solid, I can stand on the box without it deforming when it's at room temperature. Any help is appreciated, thanks.

 

[retired baker]

Heyo, I work in a commercial bakery where we serve about 1500 people daily. We don't stock any butter, they only order vegetable shortening and vegetable oil for us so that's all we have.
The problem is the the shortening comes in these huge 50 pound blocks and we have trouble getting it broken down to cream the fat with the sugar using our big industrial planetary mixers.
Even at room temperature this shortening is very solid, I can stand on the box without it deforming when it's at room temperature. Any help is appreciated, thanks.

you need a professional cheese wire.

Choice 44" Cheese Wire with Polyethylene Handles

Maximize efficiency in your busy kitchen when you use this Choice 44" cheese wire with polyethylene handles! This cheese wire is perfect for slicing through hard and semi-hard cheese blocks and wheels, though you can also use it on medium and softer varieties. The wire easily slices through your...

www.webstaurantstore.com

 

[Ivattavi]

you need a professional cheese wire.

Choice 44" Cheese Wire with Polyethylene Handles

Maximize efficiency in your busy kitchen when you use this Choice 44" cheese wire with polyethylene handles! This cheese wire is perfect for slicing through hard and semi-hard cheese blocks and wheels, though you can also use it on medium and softer varieties. The wire easily slices through your...

www.webstaurantstore.com

Ah, that would probably help. We are able to cut the shortening using large metal cutters at the moment so while cheese wire would help the issue is that once we get the shortening into the mixer it doesn't break down the same way butter does. We use the reverse creaming method and so we try to cream the shortening with the dry ingredients but the shortening doesn't seem to mix as well as butter. It kind of remains solid and doesn't reach that same kind of soft plasticity that butter does. Maybe we can increase the temperature by increasing the mixing speed? Thanks.

 

[retired baker]

Ah, that would probably help. We are able to cut the shortening using large metal cutters at the moment so while cheese wire would help the issue is that once we get the shortening into the mixer it doesn't break down the same way butter does. We use the reverse creaming method and so we try to cream the shortening with the dry ingredients but the shortening doesn't seem to mix as well as butter. It kind of remains solid and doesn't reach that same kind of soft plasticity that butter does. Maybe we can increase the temperature by increasing the mixing speed? Thanks.

run it with the paddle and introduce the sugar first to break it down, then add the other dry ingredients.