The subject invention is directed toward the art of producing pastry products and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus for treating a single layer sheet of pastry dough to give it the appearance of having been woven from a plurality of individual strips.
The invention is particularly intended for use in forming the top crust of pies and will be described with reference thereto; however, the invention is capable of broader application and could be used whenever it is desired to produce a pastry product having the noted appearance.
The use of a lattice-work top crust on certain types of pies, especially fruit pies, is somewhat traditional and produces a particularly attractive pie. Typically, such crusts have been produced by forming flat pastry strips which are then manually woven into an open basket-weave pattern. The process is, of course, comparatively time consuming. Thus, it is relatively uneconomic to use such crusts on high volume bakery produced pies.
In an effort to mechanize the production of the crusts, a variety of cutters and punching devices have been proposed. The pie crusts resulting from the use of these prior devices do not, however, have a true woven appearance. Rather, they look like what they are, namely, flat sheets of pastry dough with a pattern of holes punched therethrough. Consequently, there as been an ongoing need to provide apparatus and method for efficiently and effectively producing crusts having the desired appearance.