Hostess Brands: Beyond the Squiggle

Oakes icing and extrusion equipment were featured in an article by Joanie Spencer that was published in both Baking & Snack magazine as well as BakingBusiness.com. The article covers how Hostess Brands products get made with the aid of Oakes products:

“There are a lot of ways to get sweet stuff on top of desserts,” said Bob Peck, vice-president, engineering, E.T. Oakes Corp., Hauppauge, NY.

For example, the company’s extrusion manifold creates strips of toppings. When producing snowball cupcakes, it extrudes a sheet of marshmallow over the inverted cakes, which are later separated and topped with coconut by a different company’s system. “The extruder can lay down continuous strips and sheets, including jams and jellies for Swiss rolls,” he explained.

Temperature control marks recent improvements in E.T. Oakes equipment. Mr. Peck described use of jacketed piping to help maintain the flowability and texture of icings. This is essential for string icing systems, the ones that lay down squiggles and lines. “If the icing is too warm, it melts into the product on which it is deposited,” he explained. “You want stiff strings that sit on top of the cake icing.

“With clean-label formulas that cut back on traditional stabilizers, you can get thicker viscosities,” Mr. Peck continued. “You may also need specialized strainers to capture crystallized blobs that could clog nozzles.”

To read the complete article, please visit BakingBusiness.com or find it on page 70 inside the December 2015 Baking & Snack magazine.