In this post I describe the calibration process and ice my first cookies with Freddie!
In my previous post , I unboxed the Freddie the Frosting machine from Primera that I bought for my bakery . With Freddie unboxed, plugged in, and his software downloaded, it was time for the next step - calibrating the icing. I pulled leftover stiff icing from my freezer along with some spare wonky, uniced circle cookies for calibrating. (Pro tip: After a few rolls, the gluten gets overworked in my dough and the cookies don’t bake the same, but I always use up the dough and bake cookies to have for Eddie test prints.)
First, a note that I have not yet had my Freddie training, so I was relying solely on Primera’s Freddie set-up video, the quick start manual (there’s a long one too, but I haven’t read it), and Freddie’s software to get me through this.
Neither the Freddie set-up video or the Freddie manual have a recommended consistency of icing, although they do provide a royal icing recipe. I thought I’d read in a Facebook post somewhere that the recommended consistency is 20-30 seconds, so I thinned my icing to that range. I used the stand that came with Freddie to fill the icing tube - which definitely made the job easier - and then inserted the tube into Freddie. It was relatively easy to get the tube locked into position. I decided to use my carousel for calibration, as I had over a dozen cookies to play with. The set-up video didn’t mention changing the number of cookies setting in the software, but I knew to look for that because I’ve had an Eddie for 2.5 years.
Freddie did a good job of walking me through the process, but it turned out my icing was way too thin. For cookies that I’m going to print with Eddie, I outline and flood my cookies in two consistencies, so it’s been awhile since I’ve made a middle, thick flood consistency. My guess is, Freddie was right, and I was wrong, and my icing was thinner than the 20 seconds I thought it was. However, Freddie alerted me to the problem and told me what to do to fix it without remixing my royal icing (which would have been quite a drag).
Freddie has pressure settings that you change to accommodate your icing. Figuring out the correct pressure is what the calibration process is for, and must be done for each new tube of icing (although I’m hoping that if I’ve prepared icing for two tubes simultaneously, I can only calibrate once, but maybe Freddie will insist). There are separate pressure settings for the outline and the flood, and the software has recommended ranges for thick and thin icing. This was very helpful as I used those ranges as guidance to change the pressures.
I did find it confusing that I couldn’t access the pressure settings unless I started a calibration run first. I thought after doing the first calibration run and changing the pressure and trying again, it would let me change the pressure a second time. Instead, I had to start the calibration process again. This could be user error and of course I’ll ask Primera during my Freddie training if there’s a short cut.
On the third cookie, I successfully calibrated the icing, and after piping a few lines, Freddie piped an outline as well. I like that he didn’t pipe the outline until he had figured out the pressure was right for the lines, as that would have likely meant an icing mess. Since all the cookies would eventually be iced, I just wiped the icing off the three I used for calibrating so I could use them again.
Overall, it was a simple process. I recorded the process and even with all the changing of settings and me not really knowing what I was doing, it took less than 8 minutes. Now that I’ve done it, I’m sure it will be a faster process next time. If you want a video showing the calibration in action, head over to our youtube channel:
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