The Bakers Manufacturing Academy, owned by the American Bakers Association (ABA), has launched two new specialized courses: Tortillas and Variety Hearth Breads Lessons.

Training for tortillas

The tortilla product category, with more than $3.2 billion in sales in 2020, grows year after year. Training employees on the unique product characteristics, ingredients, and processing variations used in the production of flour and corn tortillas will be critical to maintain quality. During this course, ranges of production settings will be discussed, as well as characteristics of a “good” finished product.

The Tortillas course is comprised of two modules. The first module explores flour tortillas and the second explains corn tortillas. A flour tortilla is a type of soft, thin flatbread made from finely ground flour. The flour tortilla module identifies the ingredients, equipment, processes, and key defects of flour tortillas. Corn tortillas are used to make soft table tortillas, taco shells, and tortilla chips. The Tortillas course will focus on the ingredients and processes used to manufacture nixtamalized corn tortillas.

The entire Tortillas course takes approximately an hour and a half to complete and is available to ABA Members for $50/student, non-Members $100/student. Click here for more information.

Variety hearth breads lessons

The Variety Hearth Breads course focuses on unique product characteristics, ingredients, and processing variations used in the production of wheat, whole wheat, multigrain, rye, and raisin breads. For each variety, acceptable ranges of production settings are explained. Additionally, key characteristics and terminology is defined in the specialty grain ingredients module. Like the Tortillas course, the Variety Hearth Breads also has two lesson modules: Hearth Breads and Sourdough Breads.

Unlike pan breads, hearth breads are baked on a heated surface with no pan and must have controlled size and shape. There are many different types of hearth breads: French, sourdough, Italian, and Ciabatta breads are common types. Bakers use processing controls such as formulation, dough temperature, mix times, molding, proofing, and baking to control the shape. Often, hearth breads will have lean formulas with few or no enriching ingredients such as sugar, fat, milk, and/or eggs. This module will explore the formulation and processing of hearth breads.

Sourdough breads typically have a sour flavor. Sourdough relies on wild yeast and bacteria to leaven the dough and provide the characterizing flavor. This module will go through the ingredients and processes to make and maintain a sourdough starter culture as well as sourdough breads.

The Variety Hearth Breads Lesson takes approximately three hours to complete and is available to ABA Members for $50/student, non-Members $100/student. Click here for more information.