Abstract: Tortilla dough is shaped and precooked by being inserted in a region between the arcuate outer surface of a heated rotatable drum and the arcuate surface of a heated compression plate. The plate is pivotally-mounted and swung into position parallel to the surface of the drum to compress the dough while the drum is in a stop-phase of step motion. Thereafter, the plate is swung out of position and the drum is then rotated to cause the compressed dough to pass under the pivotally fixed end of the plate and out of said region.

Abstract: Apparatus for processing compressible, heat settable material, and in one embodiment, useful in producing foodstuffs including so-called tortillas made from wheat flour, comprises a step-motion, rotatable, heated drum; a curved, pivotally-mounted, heated compression plate positioned in proximity to the drum for being swung into position parallel to the surface of said drum when the drum is in the stop-phase of step motion; feed means for feeding foodstuff materials into the region between the drum and the plate when the plate is swung away from the drum; and means for conveying compressed foodstuffs away from the drum surface as it rotates in the motion phase of the step motion.

Abstract: A method and system for continuous high-speed commercial cooking and cooling using pre-heated dough ingredients for making products such as tortillas, provides predetermined specific heating patterns in an infrared cooking sequence which assures consistent product characteristics. Dough blanks formed of pre-heated ingredients are conveyed past predetermined sequences of infrared burners within an oven along a series of paths to sequentially expose alternate sides of the pre-heated ingredients to intensive radiant heating patterns each of decreasing heat intensity and of predetermined short time duration. Conveyors within the oven are synchronized to maintain blank spacing similar throughout the cooking process and turnaround chute means reverse and transfer blanks from one conveyor to another for alternatively exposing opposite sides of the articles to the radiant heaters. Burner cooling and fume exhaust is obtained by introducing air near the center of the oven and discharging it at the oven ends.

Abstract: A continuous machine system for producing a cooked dough-type product by utilizing pre-cooking of the dough while being mixed prior to shaping enabling a reduction of oven dwell time to a minimum while obtaining the commercially desired characteristics in the final product. Proper pre-cooking dough temperature is achieved by mixing heated liquid with the ingredients or heating the mixing vessel or both. A delicate balance between pre-cooking action is achieved to produce an attractive appearing and delicious product, and the machine system components are synchronized to yield a continuous high speed economical process resulting in a product such as a tortilla possessing the desired characteristics of taste, texture and appearance.

Abstract: This invention relates to food processing apparatus, and in one embodiment includes collating apparatus for synchronizing the position of the leading edge of irregularly shaped, supple objects, such as tortillas, and apparatus for removing such objects individually from the synchronizing apparatus by grasping them by their front edges and transporting them to an associated stacking apparatus.