Lately, there has been a growing demand for mini pastries. Small-sized gourmet baked treats are more popular than ever as customers are attracted to the delicious flavor without feeling guilty. This bite-sized trend has been on the rise for a while now but has fully hit its stride and bakeries are reaping the benefits of its recent spike in popularity. The trend is most likely due in part to the weight-consciousness of consumers today. Bakeries worldwide are reducing their portion sizes to fit people's dieting regimens. Bakers will also tell you a major benefit to mini sizes is that they are less wasteful. Compared to having full-sized cakes and pies, the mini pastries are more practical.

There are also reports that mini pastries are selling more than their full-sized counterparts! For those bakers not taking full advantage of this trend, or for those who are but looking for a way to streamline the process of baking small, there are ways to help. Bakery equipment like sheeters, dough depositors and rack ovens can help you bake small at a higher rate of production in order to keep up with the high demand of these tiny treats.

Empire's SMART Programmable Floor Dough Sheeter is ideal for laminated doughs, pie crusts, cookies and more. With up to 50 pre-programmed production sequences, you can load in your mini pastry production settings for easy access when looking to bake small. If your bakery lacks the room for a floor sheeter, then Empire's EASY Tabletop Reversible Pastry Sheeter is perfect for you. Both sheeters are ideal for easily and efficiently sheeting your dough for small bake production, helping cut back on labor cost.

Empire offers a line of dough depositors that can help you make smaller cookies or cakes that are high-quality at a consistent size. The SUPREMA Cookie Depositor has a 200-recipe memory capacity to store your small bake recipes, and the ability to produce 180 trays of cookies per hour! Flexible with a wide range of pastries, your bakery could easily produce trays and trays of tiny cookies, cakes, biscuits and more as efficiently as possible.

Now that your bite-size baked goods are produced, you need another super-efficient way to bake them all off. Empire's LFR-FOX Rack Oven offers compact design when space is at a premium and an innovative SureFlow Steam System that will provide your mini pastries with consistent steam and high-quality bake each time. Available in 10-20 pan capacities, this rack oven is the final piece to your small bake needs.

With mini pastries in high demand these days, and if you plan on joining in on the trend, it is important to make sure your bakery is properly equipped for the level of production required when baking small. Luckily, Empire Bakery Equipment has the equipment and expertise available to help you every step of the way, no matter how small they may be.