Lamination

Lamination is a folding technique of dough to define this short and broad at the same time. Folding in general is applied in bread processes in various forms and ways and can even be crucial for the development of (in particular high water based) breads, such as baguettes and pizza, focaccia. To get more specific: with lamination we are following a distinct technique of reduction of dough thickness and folding (in 3 or 4) is what we would call 0,5 Turn. By turning the folded dough 90° we would start over again to we have fulfilled 1 Full Turn. In traditional bakeries the dough would have a chilled rest of at least 15-30 minutes in order to relax the gluten and with that reduce shrinkage of the dough piece later on in the process or even tearing of the dough if too much resistance is build.

The technique of folding is what we would call nowadays “French” and is in 3. 

The other technique is called Dutch or Scottish and is in 4. In industrial lines the folding is roughly based on the 2 above and based on your settings one can create layers in multiple ways. 

The usage of lamination can be widely, but most know products are:

•           Yeasted laminated products (e.g. Croissants, Danish)
•           Puff Pastry (also known as millefeuille)
•           Crackers (although some are fermented as well)

Very often there is a relatively simple formulation with the choice of having all or only some of the fat directly in the dough; this choice effects dough development and if a fat source (margarine or butter) is laminated into the dough (which is normal in “French” method. The number of layers multiply fairly quickly as one can see with the table below:

	Dutch/ Scottish (4)	French (3)	French (3) Butter as layer
0,5 Turn	4	6	9
1 Turn	16	18	27
1,5 Turn	64	54	81
2,0 Turn	256	162	243
2,5 Turn	1024	486	729
3,0 Turn	4096	1458	2187

 

Up to 1 Turn the baking result is considered to be ‘wild’ and uneven, but this finds an optimum around 2-3 Turns, depending on your targeted product. If layers tend to separate during or after baking this is often a sign that reduction wasn’t enough before folding.

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