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Baking 101: Which Rolling Pin Is Best?

December 11, 2015 by Joy the Baker 74 Comments

Which Rolling Pin Is Best?

I can be a bit of a nag in the kitchen.  

I don’t generally care how fancy your butter is, which set of copper measuring cups you use, or if your oven is gas or electric or hamster-wheel-powered. If you’ve been around here for even just a few days, you know that I’m a stickler, a nag, a nuisance, a pest, a finger-wagger about making your own pie crust.  

Proof:  Five Tips For the Best All-Butter Pie Crust From Scratch

Pie crust requires patience, guts, practice, flour, butter, buttermilk, and a rolling pin.  But wait… why are there so many different kinds of rolling pins?  Different strokes for different folks.  (Is that rolling pin humor?)  Let’s discuss the differences.  The right rolling pin and you’ll be on your way to pie crust success.

Did someone say pie!? (yes. me. a lot.)

Bourbon Pear Crumble Pie

Salty Honey Pie

Brown Butter Chess Pie

Traditional Rolling Pin

Perhaps this is the most familiar rolling pin to you, the American or ‘baker’s’ rolling pin. A wooden, in this case Maple, center dowel that turns in the center of two handles.  You can comfortably curl your fingers around each of the handles, using leverage and arm strength to push the rolling pin forward and back over dough.  

Pro:  comfortable handles.  Great for everything from cookies, biscuits, pizza, and pie.  

Con:  I’ve found that these rolling pins can be a bit heavy and are slightly less maneuverable that other, handleless options.  

Overall, I love this style of rolling pin.  It’s comfortable, versatile, classic.  If you only have one rolling pin in your kitchen (because you’re a reasonable person), this Maple Rolling Pin is great.  Not too large or heavy, making it wonderful for pie crust and other rolling needs.  

French Rolling Pin

You may have run across a Tapered or French-style rolling pins and thought… nope, too fancy for me.  I did.  I was wrong.  

French Rolling Pins don’t have handles, so you won’t be grasping at the sides of the rolling pin to push and pull.  Instead, you use the heel of your hand to press a French Rolling Pin away from you.  Since you aren’t grasping the outside handles, you naturally place your hands, more towards the center of the rolling pin, applying pressing and pressing the dough with more control and intimacy than a rolling pin with handles.  

Pro:  maneuverability, controlled pressure, more control in general, lightweight.

Con:  great for soft bread doughs and pie doughs… not good for a stiff or chilled cookie dough.  

Overall, this is a wonderful rolling pin to have.They’re beautiful, simple, and really easy to work with. 

Mahogany French Rolling Pin or Food52’s beautiful Tapered Wooden Rolling Pins.  

Laser Cut Rolling Pins

Let’s talk about show-off rolling pins.  These are them. 

These, personalized laser-cut rolling pins (they totally say Joy the Baker) are for two specific purposes.  One:  making awesome custom sugar cookies and Two: as decoration on my kitchen shelf.  

This is not your pie crust rolling pin.  It’s just not.  

Laser Cut Rolling Pins.

Vintage Rolling Pin

Maybe it’s your grandmother’s rolling pin.  Maybe it’s a great find from that awesome vintage shop you found in Nashville.  Either way, a vintage rolling pin is lovely to have… especially if you’re a food stylist who collects various dilapidated wood props. 

Did people have smaller hands in the 1940’s?  I’m thinking yes.  Vintage rolling pins are often smaller than modern rolling pins.  This one in particular feels like something between a traditional and a tapered rolling pin.  

Pros:  way good vibes, and often smaller in size making them great for single pie crusts and food photographs.  

Cons:  sometimes they’re too small and questionably splintery.  These things are hard to ignore, but they’re still lovely to have in the kitchen. 

Marble Rolling Pin

Marble rolling pins are for the aesthetically aware and the laminated dough enthusiasts.  These rolling pins are rather heavy in weight but it can be chilled before rolling, making it a great tool for cool-sensitive doughs like puff pastry.  

Pro:  will hold a chill for the two times you might make puff pastry a year. Two!? Weight of the rolling pin can work for you… less arm pressure.  Oh so pretty. 

Con:  can be heavy and tedious to maneuver, but it’s hard to be mad at a piece of pretty marble.  

Overall, a splurge.  

To clean a rolling pin, here’s a trick: use a soft bench scraper to scrape any flour and dough bits off the pin then use a clean, damp cloth to wipe the rolling pin.  No submerging in water.  Don’t even think about the dishwasher.  

Update:  I love reading your comments below about your favorite, feel-good rolling pins!  Tell me tell me!  What’s in your kitchen? 

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Emily

    December 12, 2015 at 5:59 pm

    I use my Grandma’s old wooden traditional rolling pin. It’s shiny from decades of rolling buttery crusts and doughs :) Major good vibes when I use it.

    Reply
  2. Eleni

    December 12, 2015 at 3:52 pm

    I’m about 50/50 for the traditional and the handle-less. The time I prefer the handle-less is when I’m rolling dough really thin, because if I use a traditional rolling pin my knuckles wind up scraping the counter and it makes me crazy!

    My mom has a few traditional Greek rolling pins used to roll dough extremely thin for pitas such as spanakopita. It’s a pretty cool method, actually. The rolling pins are very long, and about 1/4″-1/2″ in diameter.

    Reply
  3. Leslie Helston

    December 12, 2015 at 3:41 pm

    Am heafing to New Orlwans ovet Christmas. Joy, any suggestions for foodie stores/restaus… Might be in the market for a tapered rolling pin after reading this post!

    Reply
  4. Stephanie in Corralitos

    December 12, 2015 at 10:52 am

    My grandmother gave me HER rolling pin as a wedding gift in 1987. It’s just like the maple rolling pin you linked above, but it’s from the 1940’s and the paint (lead based???) is very worn from lots of use. The barrel is soft and smooth from years of pie crust and biscuit making. It’s one of my prized possessions.

    Reply
  5. Meghan

    December 12, 2015 at 7:27 am

    This is super helpful as I am working on my wedding registry right now and honestly had no clue what type of rolling pin to list. There are multiple types available in certain stores! But after seeing this, I think either the traditional or the French rolling pin is the right one for me.

    Also – I have never seen a laser cut rolling pin before! They’re definitely very pretty to look at. :)

    Reply
  6. J

    December 12, 2015 at 12:06 am

    This is where I quietly glance at my ‘rolling pin’ and thank it for its re-purposed service during my poor, education filled years. (It once contained wine. Two-buck Chuck, to be precise.)

    Reply
  7. Sweet Tea Sweetie

    December 11, 2015 at 11:31 pm

    Great review! I always just grab a wine bottle.
    Kari
    http://www.sweetteasweetie.com

    Reply
  8. Joann

    December 11, 2015 at 7:23 pm

    My prized rolling pin is on my Albanian friend gave me. It was the one she used to roll out pastry for baklava, amongst others. It is longer and thinner than a French one and brings back such wonderful memories of our time together.

    Reply
  9. Sandra

    December 11, 2015 at 7:10 pm

    I still use the traditional rolling pin my father bought for me before I got married 50+ years ago. I have made many, many pies with it.

    Reply
  10. lisafromappalachia

    December 11, 2015 at 6:59 pm

    This is a great marble rolling pin on Amazon. It comes with a nice wooden base which allows me to display the pretty pin when i’m not using it and it’s only $16.99!

    https://www.amazon.com/Fox-Run-Brands-Marble-Rolling/dp/B0000VLPAS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1449881882&sr=8-1&keywords=marble+rolling+pins+for+baking

    Reply
  11. cindy

    December 11, 2015 at 6:25 pm

    I use a french rolling pin (found it in the discount section of Ross years ago, HA).

    Reply
  12. Kate

    December 11, 2015 at 5:09 pm

    I have a French rolling pin which I use for everything. It feels so good in my hands as I’m rolling. I do own a traditional one, I just never seem to use it!

    Reply
  13. The Capable Student

    December 11, 2015 at 4:55 pm

    I have always loved the simplicity of the French rolling pin.

    Reply
  14. czelazek

    December 11, 2015 at 4:34 pm

    I have a lovely rosewood rolling pin, bought from the guy who made it in Mexico. I got to choose from several pieces of wood to pick the grain I liked. Makes me happy every time I use it.

    Reply
  15. Kendra

    December 11, 2015 at 3:26 pm

    I don’t really care for the traditional pin because I find you have to be careful with the pressure as to not break the handles off (been there, done that). I recently found a hand carved pin (for $3) that looks like the vintage one you have pictured, and it is by far my favorite pin to date. That said, my manfriend bought me a marble pin at an estate sale that I am yet to try so the jury is still out on that one!

    Reply
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