Pizza Dough Dockers

Roller Dockers: What You Need to Know

As any pizza professional, bread artisan, or pastry chef knows, there are dozens of factors that can impact the quality of the baked goods served in a restaurant, café, or bakery, from the ingredients and flavors combinations to baking times. In foodservice businesses promising freshly baked pastries or handcrafted pizzas, pastry dockers and pizza dough dockers help ensure the baked goods served to your customers look as good as they taste. No matter how simple its design, a commercial dough docker can be the difference between a picture-perfect pizza and one marred by large, burnt bubbles.

Common Questions About Dough Dockers

What is a dough docker?

Dough dockers basically look like a pizza roller with spikes. They consist of a handle attached to a wheelbase, which holds a rolling core affixed with rows of spikes called pins or points. By holding the handle and rolling the docker's spikes across the surface of dough once it has been spread out, you can create dozens of punctures in one fluid motion. This technique is often applied to pie crusts, flatbreads, puff pastries, and other baked goods that need to remain flat, but it isn't necessary for all dough.

Why should dough be docked?

Docking your dough can help prevent bubbles from ruining a pizza, pie, or pastry while it bakes. By piercing small holes in the dough, roller dockers provide a way for air and gas to escape during baking. Although these punctures can be made individually with a fork, dough dockers eliminate that tedious process and enable chefs to dock their dough with speed and precision.

What types of dough dockers are available?

Although specific design elements may vary slightly between models, the main decision you need to make when buying these tools is the width of the core. A pizza dough docker, for example, should be larger than a pastry docker, as dough used in pizzerias will be rolled out in larger diameters and require more punctures than dough used to make individual pastries. Dough dockers are available with widths between 2 and 9 inches and, depending on size, may be listed as full-size or half-size dockers.

KaTom carries roller dockers made of plastic, aluminum, and stainless steel. One-piece dockers made of plastic are the most economic option and may be a great choice for operations on a budget or kitchens not making large amounts of dough each day. However, if you can afford to spend a bit more on your tools and need a heavy-duty option, dough dockers with an aluminum or stainless steel handle are more durable. These are usually paired with a plastic rolling core that has plastic or metal pins; unlike one-piece models, extra wheels can be purchased so the rolling core can be replaced instead of disposing of the entire dough docker.