Apparatus for stretching dough material

An apparatus for stretching dough for cakes, bread or the like, comprising:

• (a) means including a plurality of serially arranged conveying members adapted to underlie and support said dough for carrying it along a predetermined path,
• (b) a plurality of rollers moveable in unison along a closed roller path having a straight lower portion spaced above and along each of said conveying members, said rollers during their movement along said lower portion being in contact with the dough moving along said predetermined path, and
• (c) means operatively associated with said rollers for moving them laterally along said lower portion in the same direction as and at a speed greater than that of said dough so as to compress and stretch it,
• (d) each of said conveying members being constituted by an upper flight of a respective conveyor belt, said belts each moving at a speed greater than that of the nearest upstream conveyor belt so as to stretch said dough in regions between upper flights of adjacent conveyor belts, the upper flights of adjacent conveyor belts being spaced from one another sufficiently so as to provide said regions with a length throughout which the stretching by said belts can be distributed while the regions are unsupported from below so as to receive only a light contact pressure from said rollers as they pass thereover.