As you will have seen on our web site, we make both electric and gas Chimney cake baking machines. Customers who are at fixed indoor locations tend to purchase one of our electric machines, whereas those wishing to bake outside and be more mobile, tend to choose a gas model.

Yes, all our Chimney cake machines have motors. When the cooking roll is inserted into the oven or grill, it will connect to a motor and its this motor which rotates and turns around the cooking roll during the baking process.

We suggest that you order three times the baking capability of your chimney cake machine. For example, if the machine can bake up to 6 pieces in one bake, we would suggest you order at least 18 cooking rolls. If you wish to make different size products, then we suggest at least two times the baking potential for each type of cooking roll. For example, in the case of the Electric grill 6, we suggest 12 x standard and 12 x cones.

After the dough has been rolled onto the cooking roll, the dough must rest so that the dough rises before baking. The cooking rolls, with the wrapped dough, are placed onto the racks and left to rise. When the baker can visually see that the dough has risen, the dough can be baked. We also think that the racks, when full of cooking rolls are an attractive feature. When people see the racks and rolls, they are drawn closer, to try and find out more about what you are making and selling.

The size of kneading machine you purchase will depend on the amount of dough that you wish to knead in one batch / bowl.

We believe that the best dough is fresh dough, which is prepared every 3 to 4 hours during the working day. A big machine (that which has a large kneading bowl) will struggle to knead smaller amounts, whereas if the machine is too small, you might have to knead lots of smaller batches of dough, which is time consuming.

Taking this into consideration, a 20 litre or 20-quart machine is a good option.

There are generally two types of kneading machines.

The first has a fixed bowl and the second (known as a planetary mixer) has a removable bowl.

Our preference is the planetary mixer as we find it much easier to use and to keep clean. You can take the mixing bowl and place it directly onto your weighting scales, so that you can weight your ingredients straight into the bowl. At the end of the working day, you can detach the bowl from the machine and clean it thoroughly in the sink and rinse under the tap.

Planetary mixers normally have more than one speed. We suggest when making Chimney cake dough, that you knead first on the regular speed for 9 minutes and then on fast speed for the final 1 minute.

As you will see on our web site, we make both wood and stainless-steel cooking rolls. 

The wooden cooking rolls are made from beech wood, which is a common material for making food utensils from. What’s important to note about the wooden rolls, is that you should cover most of the cooking area with the dough as exposed wood will burn / turn black.

If the cooking rolls which we advertise and stock don’t meet your requirements, we can make bespoke cooking rolls to order. For example, our cones rolls are 13cm in length. Some vendors ask us for a smaller 10cm cone, which we don’t have in stock, but can make for a minimum order of 20 pieces.

Some of our vendors told us that they were not allowed to use wooden utensils which are in contact with food in their production and so we decided to make and sell cooking rolls made from food grade stainless steel.

Unlike the wooden cooking rolls, you can cover as much or less of the cooking area as you want with dough, as exposed areas will not burn or crack. 

Unlike the wooden cooking rolls, the stainless-steel rolls can be fully submerged in water or even placed into the dishwasher for cleaning purposes.

The stainless-steel rolls are a bit heavier than the wooden rolls, which might affect the wrists due to the extra weight when performing the rolling process.

The stainless-steel rolls take longer to cool, therefore if you want to use a stainless-steel roll again, which has just come from the oven / grill, you need to rinse it under water to cool the steel down before handling.

We do not make the cone in stainless steel as we were not satisfied with the results.  Due to the angle of the cone and the smooth stainless-steel material, we found that the dough slipped down the cone too much, when the cone was rotating whilst baking.  This resulted in an unevenly shaped and baked cone. Therefore, the cone cooking rolls are only available in wood.

Baking dough on stainless steel cooking rolls is quicker, but only by a few seconds.

Due to the nature of wood and how the wood is being used, such as coated in oil, baked in a hot oven or grill, and then washed with water, the wood will crack. Usually, small cracks will show at the beginning of use, however, if the rolls are seasoned correctly before and are looked after, the cracks will stay to a minimum. 

The cooking rolls are made from untreated dried beech wood. As soon as you receive the rolls and before you use them, you must season the wood.

Basically, what this means, is that you need to paint the wooden cooking area with sunflower oil, three or four times per day, for three or four days, so that the oil completely soaks into the wood.

If you don’t season the rolls, the dry wood will ‘suck’ the moisture out of the unbaked dough, resulting in a dry baked product.

Also, the dough will stick to the cooking roll, which will make it difficult to remove after baking and will tear or stick to the cooking roll.

Wooden chimney cake cooking rolls– During the working day, in-between bakes, the wooden cooking rolls can be wiped with a clean, hot wet cloth. Then at the end of the working day, the wooden cooking rolls can be washed under the tap (running water) and using a small about of detergent on a sponge, can be lightly scrubbed, rinsed, and then dried thoroughly with a clean towel.

Stainless steel chimney cake cooking rolls – After each bake, a small amount of dough residue will probably remain on the roll. This needs to be wiped off with a cloth before new dough can be applied. Running the roll under the tap which will also cool the roll quicker so that it can be handled for applying the next strip of dough.

Yes, we do stock and sell spare parts for all our Chimney cake baking machines. 

Stainless steel chimney cake cooking rolls – After each bake, a small amount of dough residue will probably remain on the roll. This needs to be wiped off with a cloth before new dough can be applied. Running the roll under the tap which will also cool the roll quicker so that it can be handled for applying the next strip of dough.