Then they came to the mixing room. Everything was white—the huge mixers were white; the walls were white; the bakers were dressed in white with odd round white caps; the dough trays were white—everything was white and spotless.
“The flour from the sifters above comes through an opening in the floor into the mixers. Then the yeast and other things are added. The electric power is started. The great iron arms of the mixers turn, and twist, and mix until the whole mass becomes dough,” Mr. Baker explained.
Along the wall were the dough trays in which the dough is set to rise. These trays remind one of huge white bath tubs on wheels, a little wider and deeper and about twice as long as the ones in our houses.
“How much will each one of those hold?” asked Wallace, pointing to the trays full of creamy dough.
“Enough to make eleven hundred loaves,” answered the manager.
“Why, there must be over forty of them,” said Wallace, looking down the long line. “How many loaves do you bake in a day?”
“We have two more bakeries like this, and in the three we bake about one hundred thousand loaves a day—besides rolls and cakes.”
“Why, I didn’t know there was so much bread in the world,” said Wallace.
“Yes, my boy, there are bakeries almost everywhere. We supply only a small part of the bread needed in our large city.”
As they went down the next stairway to the baking room, the pleasant odor of fresh-baked bread came up to meet them.