From Flour to Finish: Innovation at the NCI Baking Lab

When it comes to supporting the science and creativity behind baked goods, the NCI Baking Laboratory stands at the forefront. As a key component of Northern Crops Institute’s technical services, the Bake Lab provides a food-safe, fully equipped environment for advanced product development, product quality testing, and hands-on training. Whether you're perfecting a classic loaf or creating the next big thing in baked snacks, the Bake Lab is designed to help bring your ideas to life.

The NCI Bake Lab supports a broad range of baked products, from pan breads and buns to artisan loaves, cookies, cakes, tortillas, and more. This lab is equipped with industry-standard baking tools that allow for both small-scale experimentation and scaled-up testing. With equipment ranging from benchtop to bakery-scale Hobart dough mixers, a Moline sheeter/moulder, and a Rondo dough sheeter for laminated and sheeted doughs, we have experience handling diverse production methods with precision.

The Bake Lab oven capabilities include double-deck units with steam injection and a Baxter revolving oven that supports both convection and steam baking. The lab also features a Delfield ConvoChill blast freezer, a ProProcess DoughPro tortilla press, and a Frymaster deep fryer. Using this equipment, our highly-skilled technical staff bring extensive expertise and work closely with clients to support the development of innovative products.

If you’ve ever walked into the NCI Baking Lab and been greeted by the smell of fresh bread or cookies, there’s a good chance Rachel was behind it. A proud NDSU Food Science grad, Rachel got her start as a Student Lab Assistant before diving into research on canola and canola biodiesel with NDSU’s Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering Department. Now as one of NCI’s Food Scientists, she specializes in baking with wheat and soy, turning northern-grown crops into delicious creations while also assisting with pilot-scale processing, running lab analyses, and guiding demonstrations for visitors from around the world.

For Rachel, the magic of the Baking Lab is “creating delicious baked goods and helping clients solve problems.” She loves the mix of creativity, science, and hands-on work that goes into developing and troubleshooting formulas. Her passion started young, first in her mom’s kitchen, where she learned the joy of baking, and later in high school, where a chemistry teacher used cooking to bring science to life. Today, she blends that early inspiration with years of expertise, making every project in the lab a recipe for both flavor and innovation.