The Best Rolling Pin | Kunming Fastener Pins Inc.

Although we still love the Tomnuk French Rolling Pin, we’ve removed it as a pick due to availability issues. We still stand by our other picks.

A rolling pin is such a simple tool that we wondered if there could be much difference among models, but after nearly 20 hours of research and a dozen conversations with bakers and cooks—both professional and amateur—we learned that small variations matter. When we tested 12 carefully selected rolling pins (out of nearly 30 we considered) on three types of dough, the timeless maple 23-inch Whetstone Woodenware French Rolling Pin proved to be a superior tool and a great value. It’s more agile than a handled pin, doesn’t stick to the dough as much as cheaper models, has just enough heft to do some of the work for you without smashing fragile dough, and is one of the easiest to clean.

The 23-inch version of this tapered pin rolls dough more efficiently than handled pins, works well for rolling both pies and cookies, and is one of the easiest to clean. Plus, it’s good-looking and sturdy enough to last a lifetime.

You may be surprised not to see handles on any of our recommended pins. When most people think of a rolling pin, they conjure the image of a wooden one with two handles, but the experts we interviewed and novices we tested with agreed that a pin without handles gives a better sense of the dough and is a better tool if you are baking for hours. Even our 10-year-old tester came to prefer them. (If you really want a handled pin, we did test a few.) The hand-finished Whetstone, a tapered French-style pin, not only worked better than handled versions; it proved superior to similarly shaped mass-produced pins (while costing a fraction of what hand-turned pins sell for). Its long, tapered shape also makes it ideal for rolling rounds of crust for pie and the more oblong shapes for cookies.

This dowel-shaped pin isn’t quite as agile as our main pick for making round shapes and needs to be dusted with flour more often. But it’s ideal for rolling oblong and rectangular shapes and can be fitted with spacers to help achieve precise thickness.

The JK Adams 19-inch Wooden Rolling Dowel isn’t as good for rolling rounds of pie crust, but its long dowel shape makes it easier to roll out a big sheet of cookie dough that is perfectly even. A generic set of spacers (essentially rubber bands of various thicknesses), which won’t work on a tapered pin, can help novice bakers roll to a precise thickness and avoid making one section thinner than another. Its weight was similar to our top pick: light enough not to crack or dent fragile dough, but heavy enough to help the work go quickly with less muscle. The JK Adams dowel is widely available and affordably priced.

I’ve worked as a pastry baker in Providence, Rhode Island, at Olga’s Cup and Saucer and Cook & Brown (sometimes rolling out hundreds of pies in a day), recipe developer for publications that include Edible Brooklyn and Marie Claire, and food stylist for sites such as Refinery29. Believe it or not, I still bake for fun, too. In my home kitchen, I’m a rigid minimalist—living in a Brooklyn apartment, I have to be. For any tool to be awarded a bit of the limited space, it must be effective and versatile. I don’t have room for useless duplicates, silly gadgets, or junk.

When I set out to write a review of rolling pins, I began by reading every review I could find. Sources included articles from Cook’s Illustrated (subscription required), The Splendid Table, Saveur, Remodelista, The Kitchn, Real Simple, and Serious Eats, and forums on eGullet and Food52 (among others).

I interviewed experts who not only have extensive experience but can relate to a home cook’s point of view. Stella Parks, a professional pastry chef who wrote the book Brave Tart, covers pastries for Serious Eats and is known for down-to-earth explanations of the science and technique of pastry. Erin Patinkin, co-owner of Ovenly bakery and co-author of the Ovenly cookbook, started as a home baker without formal training. Derek Laughren, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, doesn’t consider himself much of a baker, but is frequently called upon to produce perfect pastry in his work. I also had informal conversations with experts and amateurs alike, including baking blogger Yossy Arefi, chef Monica Byrne of Home/Made and Atelier Roquette, and friends and family who bake anywhere from once a year to once a week.

In a pinch, you can use a wine bottle in place of a rolling pin—indeed, many fine pies have been made this way. If all you ever roll out is forgiving yeasted dough for pizza or sticky buns, a wine bottle might be all you need (until you tire of digging through the recycling bin every time you bake). But if you’re after precision in your pies and cookies, a rolling pin is worth the $10-$30 investment.

If you already own a rolling pin that you like, you needn’t fret over getting a better one: the best rolling pin is one that you are comfortable with. However, it may be time to upgrade if you find yourself struggling with sticking or cracking dough, a pin that’s difficult to maneuver, or a handled pin that spins in place instead of rolling smoothly across the surface. Also, if you’re looking for a rolling pin that works for both you and your kids, check out our guide to tools for cooking with kids.

When you think of a rolling pin, you probably picture the kind with two handles, called a baker’s or American rolling pin. But most professional bakers and all of our experts use a handleless pin. Handleless pins come in two styles: ones that taper towards the end, often referred to as French rolling pins, and straight dowels that are sometimes called shaker pins.

Tapered pins pivot easily as you roll, making them ideal for flattening round pie crusts. Derek Laughren says, "I prefer them, because of the added control, ease of cleaning (no moving parts, no rust, no nooks and crannies), as well as the aesthetic appeal." Erin Patinkin of Ovenly says, “I have my grandmother’s handled pin at home as well as a French pin that [my business partner] Agatha gave me.” While she likes both, once she opened her bakery she found that with repetition using the handled pin made her hands cramp. She explains, “When you roll away from your body using the tapered pin, you can roll the pin using the underside of your forearms, which relieves stress on your hands as compared to a handled pin.” When rolling out large oblong or rectangular shapes, some bakers find that a tapered pin requires more finesse to make the surface perfectly even—sometimes it causes subtle hills and valleys, particularly if the taper is too extreme.

Dowel pins have a slight advantage for creating large surfaces that are perfectly even and can be fitted with spacers (essentially plastic rings) to help you roll dough to a precise thickness. If you are rolling a big rectangle or oval and quick pivoting doesn’t matter, a dowel may work a tiny bit better than a tapered pin.

Without prompting, each of our experts expressed that a handleless pin gives them the best sense of contact with the dough—that they can really feel the dough through the pin and know if it is level. "When your hand is actually on the body of the pin, you can feel every little bump and discrepancy," says Stella Parks. Heavy-handled pins do more of the work for you by providing more leverage but give you less of a tactile sense of the dough. However, Parks points out that her mother makes gorgeous pies with a handled pin and feels awkward using the French style—ultimately, the best pin is the one you like.

The ideal length of a handleless pin is 18-22 inches. If it’s tapered, look for a straight section in the middle of seven inches or more, or look for a very gradual arc across the whole pin. The surface should feel very smooth, but not so slick that flour won’t adhere. Dusted with a little flour, the pin shouldn’t stick to your dough.

Weight and diameter are subjective: light, narrow pins are more agile, while heavier pins do more of the work for you. A good pin shouldn’t be so so heavy that it cracks a flaky piecrust, or so light that you have to lean your whole weight into it to get any work done. It should roll smoothly and turn easily to roll out a circle. It won’t conduct the heat from your hands and melt buttery pastry. And it should be simple to clean and store.

Traditionally, pins are turned from hardwood. Maple and beech, the most common hardwoods used for rolling pins, provide good value, durability, and a pleasing weight. Some high-end rolling pins are made from other hardwoods, like walnut or cherry, while the cheapest pins use beechwood. Derek Laughren, the test kitchen manager at Food52 when interviewed, used a basic wooden tapered pin like he had in culinary school. "We frequently use a wine bottle at home. It's often something people keep on the counter close to the stove, so you don't have to go digging for a pin." But when he was given a walnut pin, he found that because it’s more porous and flour adheres better, he didn’t have to dust it as often or use as much flour.

Pins made from thermally conductive materials such as marble, stainless steel, and glass are meant to be chilled (or in some cases filled with ice water) before using so that they won’t warm buttery dough. But each has its drawbacks. Marble pins are beautiful but heavy, making them hard to maneuver and causing some kinds of dough to crack. Aluminum pins can discolor eggy dough; neither metal nor glass hold flour well. Pins meant to be filled with ice water create condensation that can dampen what you’re rolling out.

Conductive materials like marble and metal might be good at getting cold, but they are also good at getting warm quickly. Stella Parks of BraveTart points out that these can transfer the warmth from your hands, while wood is a terrible conductor, so the heat from hands is unlikely to transfer to the dough. Silicone is also a relatively bad conductor (and therefore also good at keeping your dough cool). Wood and silicone are the most affordable and versatile materials.

There are wonderful wooden rolling pins to be found in flea markets and antique stores, and from small manufacturers and craftspeople around the world. It would be an impossible feat to review all of them, but you can assess any pin you come across based on the criteria we’ve set out. It should feel smooth but not slick, be at least 18 inches long, and if it tapers, look for a very gentle arc or a seven-inch straight section in the middle.

The 12 pins we tested were wooden, except one silicone tapered pin. They ranged in price from $10 to about $90. We prioritized the handleless pins favored by experts, testing two dowel pins (with and without spacers), three basic tapered pins, three fancy hand-turned tapered pins, and the tapered silicone pin. We also included three handled pins as a point of reference.

We tested the rolling pins on a hot humid day in a small Brooklyn kitchen—challenging conditions for even the most skilled baker—with a 10-year-old and a 24-year-old who didn’t have much experience baking. We had to race to roll out each piece of dough before it softened into a buttery mess.

We put our rolling pins to the test with three different kinds of dough to see how they performed on a variety of textures and shapes. (The higher-end pins were already treated with mineral oil or beeswax, so I rubbed mineral oil into the untreated wooden pins the night before testing to level the playing field). We rolled very buttery and fragile-flaky pie crust into circles, soft and sticky sugar cookie dough into wide ovals, and a sweet yeasted dough for sticky buns into squares. I prepared batches of dough with as much precision as possible, using weight instead of volume to measure ingredients in order to eliminate variables that might throw off the results.

As we tested, we assessed the pins on the following criteria:

The hand-finished, 23-inch Whetstone Woodenware French Rolling Pin has all the pleasing features of a high-end rolling pin without the outrageous price tag (similar hand-turned pins cost $60-$100). Our experts and testers agreed that a handleless pin is the best tool; this one stood out amongst the 12 rolling pins I tested. The hard maple surface has a smoother finish than a basic mass-produced rolling pin, which keeps dough from sticking and makes it easy to clean. The heaviest of the tapered pins, it flattened dough with less effort than narrower lighter models, but it wasn’t so heavy that it cracked or dented the dough (as handled pins sometimes did). With a significantly longer straight section in the middle than other tapered pins, its shape offered the agility of a tapered pin with the surface smoothing capabilities of a dowel pin. Less expensive rolling pins may be perfectly functional tools, but this is a beautiful object to have in your kitchen that will last a lifetime with proper care.

The hand-finished Whetstone Woodenware French Rolling Pin has all the pleasing features of a high-end rolling pin without the outrageous price tag.

We suspected that the advantage of higher-end rolling pins was mostly aesthetic, but it turned out that their smoother finish generally meant less sticking, less dusting with flour, and easier cleaning. The frustration we experienced with the basic French rolling pins that retail from $10 to $25—JK Adams, Martha Stewart Collection for Macy’s, and Threshold from Target—dissipated as soon as I began working with the Whetstone pin. It glided across flaky pie crust, requiring fewer applications of flour than the aforementioned pins. When little bits of dough occasionally stuck, I could brush them right off with my hand as opposed to struggling with a plastic bench scraper as I had with the others. A cherrywood model from Vermont Rolling Pin was so smooth it wouldn’t hold a dusting of flour and ended up with dough all over it that was a hassle to remove. The Whetstone pin was just right.

The weight of the pin also arrived at a happy medium. It’s thicker, heavier, and longer than any of the other tapered pins. At 23 ounces, it had just enough heft to help my smallest tester, 10-year-old Vivi, roll out chilled cookie dough. Lighter pins, in the 11-to-16-ounce range, proved difficult for someone of smaller stature (who naturally has less leverage). On the other hand, heavier pins like the two-handled models from JK Adams (28 and 36 ounces) left dents in the dough when not in constant motion and felt a bit clunky to lift.

The shape of the pin allowed for rolling out large surfaces smoothly, as well as truly round discs. Of the seven French rolling pins I tested, Whetstone had the longest straight section in the middle, measuring 12 inches compared to the typical six to eight before tapering off towards the ends. The longer-than-average straight section of the Whetstone pin allowed it to work more like a dowel or handled pin for even flattening, with the maneuverability of a French pin for turning. Win-win!

Rolling pins are tinged with nostalgia for real or imagined mothers and grandmothers, and they are your tactile connection with the dough you shape.

While function is the most important aspect of any kitchen tool, aesthetics make a difference in how you relate to it. Rolling pins are tinged with nostalgia for real or imagined mothers and grandmothers, and they are your tactile connection with the dough you shape. The better experience you get with a hand-tuned pin starts with opening the box. Like the Vermont Rolling Pin, the Whetstone came neatly packed in an appropriate-size box (pins from Target and Amazon came in outrageously large packages) that makes you feel like it came from a person, not a warehouse. Turned on a vintage Powermatic 90 lathe and hand-finished in Indiana from Indiana Rock Maple, it arrives with care instructions and a little piece of fine sandpaper for keeping it perfectly smooth. The ends are gently rounded off instead of bluntly cut like a mass-produced pin. Unlike those more basic rolling pins, it is already treated with mineral oil, so it is ready to use right away. It feels like a special object that you will want to care for well and keep forever. We think you’re likely to do a lot more baking if you have a tool like this.

We wavered about recommending one of the more-expensive pins we tested when one that costs around $10 to $16 does the job just fine. If you bake only a few times a year or are just starting out, you may want to spend as little money as possible on a rolling pin and go for our budget pick. On the other hand, a rolling pin that’s less frustrating to use presents a big advantage that might make you want to bake more often. An extra $15-$19 isn’t much to spend on a tool that will last you a lifetime. We think it’s money well spent.

Although we think the Whetstone Woodenware French Rolling Pin will work best for most people, the JK Adams 19-inch Maple Rolling Dowel also performed well. Perfectionists may appreciate this pin for rolling to a precise thickness, as it can be fitted with spacers (essentially color-coded rubber bands of various thickness). And this pin was easier to use for our 10-year-old tester. But it’s not as agile as the Whetstone, which makes it slightly awkward for rolling out round shapes. The surface of the pin was not as smooth as our main pick, so it required more dustings of flour and it took more effort to clean.

This pin is less expensive than our top pick, and more widely available, so it may be a more practical choice for some readers.

The JK Adams pin weighs only an ounce more than the Whetstone Woodenware French pin, but that seemed to make the work easier for someone of small stature, such as our 10-year-old tester. And even though the pin was less agile for rolling out round shapes, it was the most effective pin we tested for evenly rolling large surfaces such as an oval or rectangle of cookie dough, regardless of skill level. This pin is less expensive than our top pick, and more widely available, so it may be a more practical choice for some readers.

We tested this pin with and without spacers and liked it both ways. While our 10-year-old said she didn’t need the spacers, we noticed that the thickness of her cookie dough was perfectly consistent when she used them and fairly uneven when she didn’t. The spacers did feel a little awkward, as it was hard to find a placement where they didn’t interfere with your grip or make tracks in the dough. In most instances it doesn’t matter if the dough is perfectly even as long as it’s close, but consistent thickness does help prevent some cookies on a sheet from burning while others undercook, and it’s important if you are baking pieces that will fit together, such as for a gingerbread house. We preferred the simplicity of this pin to an over-designed model from Joseph Joseph that had its own screw-on spacers.

Compared to some of the thin French pins weighing 11–16 ounces, this 24-ounce dowel requires less strength to flatten dough. That’s important if you’re making dozens of cookies or racing to flatten pie dough before the butter melts on a hot day. Our adult testers couldn’t tell the difference between the weight of this and the 23-ounce Whetstone Woodenware French pin (which is thicker than other tapered pins we tested). But the dowel’s one ounce of extra weight seemed to matter for our child tester, who had less leverage.

While not as quick to pivot as a tapered pin when rolling out a circle, the JK Adams 19-inch flat section consistently flattened a large surface area evenly. Only the Whetstone pin, with its 12-inch flat section, came close to flattening the dough as evenly. Our 10-year old tester had an easier time with this pin: the quick turning of a tapered rolling pin provides an advantage for shaping even circles, but it takes more dexterity to control. Our 24-year-old who had little experience baking quickly got used to the tapered pins and ultimately prefered them. It should be noted that some very skilled bakers, like Yossy Arefi of the blog Apartment 2B Baking Co., prefer a dowel pin. Chef Monica Byrne, of Home/Made in Brooklyn, also concedes that a dowel flattens more consistently. The trade-off between agility and even rolling is a matter of personal preference.

This pin is less expensive and more widely available than our top pick, so if you are on a budget or in a hurry to buy a rolling pin by tomorrow (since the Whetstone doesn’t come with overnight shipping) it may be the best choice. The JK Adams 19-inch Maple Rolling Dowel is available through many online and brick-and-mortar kitchen stores small and large, leaving it more widely available and accessible. This isn’t the beautiful object that the Whetstone Woodenware’s French Rolling Pin is, but it is an effective tool and a good value. And if precise dough thickness is important to you, a dowel pin with a set of spacers is the best choice.

Wooden rolling pins, just like wooden spoons and cutting boards, should never be run through the dishwasher or submerged in water, for they are likely to warp. The best way to clean your rolling pin is by wiping it with a dry dish towel. Stubborn bits of dough can be scraped off with a bench scraper, but be careful not to gouge the wood. You can wash your pin with a soapy sponge if you need to, and then rinse it and wipe it dry.

From time to time, when the wood feels rough or dry, apply a little mineral oil with a rag and rub it in. Like a cast iron skillet, a rolling pin can become seasoned with use, but mineral oil gives you a head start and can compensate if you have to wash the wood with soap. Higher-end pins like the one from Whetstone are already oiled, but basic pins like our recommendations from JK Adams need to be oiled before use. Whetstone Woodenware recommends: "After the first few times of use and hand washing, buff the [rolling pin] with a piece of 400 grit wet/dry sand paper or a Green 3M Scotchbrite® pad," to remove any fuzzy raised grain. How often you should oil or buff your pin depends on how often you use it and the climate you live in; when the wood looks pale and feels rough like dry skin, it’s time to care for it.

Tomnuk French Rolling Pin

The Tomnuk French Rolling Pin, our previous upgrade pick, would be a gorgeous addition to anyone’s kitchen. You can’t always judge a book by its cover, but the Tomnuk is as effective as it is beautiful. Although we still love this model, it seems to have availability issues. Even when the pin isn’t out of stock, it can often take four to six weeks to arrive.

JK Adams French Rolling Pin

This inexpensive pin used to be one of our picks—it was one of the least expensive models available, and we thought its thickness and heaviness made for easy dough flattening. However, the craftsmanship still doesn’t compare to that of the Whetstone Woodenware pin, and it’s not quite as easy to use.

JK Adams Handled Pin 12 x 2¾

A handled pin is the most familiar style for most people, and you shouldn’t feel bad about sticking to it if it feels more comfortable. It can also be fitted with spacers like a dowel pin. Our 10-year-old tester initially preferred a handled pin because it did most of the work for her, but after a few more tries she decide the dowel was better because it gave her a sense of contact with the dough. With a 12-inch barrel, it’s a good length for most projects. We preferred the simplicity of dowel and tapered pins which have no bearings to wear out and no cracks for flour to collect in. And we liked the more agile handling of a tapered pin. But this was kind of fun and nostalgic in comparison!

JK Adams Small Handled Pin 12 x 2⅜

This is the same as the JK Adams Handled Pin 12 x 2¾, but a little thinner and lighter. The main advantage of a handled pin is that it does a lot of the work for you, so we think the wider-diameter heavier version of this pin is a better choice.

Joseph Joseph Adjustable Rolling Pin

This cool-looking pin recommended by Saveur has a set of built-in spacers, and markings on the shaft of the pin for measuring the diameter or width of your dough. The spacers are built like plastic washers held on with a plastic bolt. Fussing with unscrewing the set and screwing back on the desired spacer was a hassle and we could imagine losing them in our kitchen. We prefered the easily-replaceable generic spacers we tested on the JK Adams Rolling Dowel.

Vermont Rolling Pin French Rolling Pin, Cherry

This was the one case where I felt like a pin hand-turned in the USA was designed for aesthetics and not function. The wood is beautiful, but it was so slick that flour didn’t adhere like it did to the other wooden pins, and this pin was the most difficult to scrape clean. The unique torpedo shape with only 7 flat inches (in contrast to the 12 inches on our main pick) was too extreme for good handling or smooth rolling. Plus, it’s currently nearly $50, which is a lot more expensive than our top pick.

Stella Parks, Brave Tart, Interview

Erin Patinkin, Ovenly, Interview

Derek Laughren, Food52 Test Kitchen, Interview

Cook‘s Country, Rolling Pins, America‘s Test Kitchen, August 1, 2012

Rolling Pin Reviews, Good Housekeeping

Laura Sant, One Good Find: Adjustable Rolling Pin, Saveur, April 10, 2012

Rolling Pins, The Splendid Table

Megan Gordon, My Favorite Baking Tool: The French Rolling Pin, The Kitchn, February 14, 2012

Janet Hall, 6 Favorites: Display-Worthy French Rolling Pins, Remodelista, August 21, 2013

Baker’s Must-Haves: French Rolling Pin, Martha Stewart, July 11, 2014

11 Best Baking Tools for the Holidays, Real Simple

Donna Currie, Gadgets: Put Training Wheels on Your Rolling Pin, Serious Eats, June 12, 2014

Noelle Carter, Test Kitchen Tips: Rolling Pins 101, L.A. Times, January 31, 2012

$80 vs. $20 rolling pins, eGullet Forums

Food52, Discussion

Sara Henderson, French Rolling Pins vs. Rolling Pins with Handles, Food Service Warehouse, July 6, 2016

Elisa Huang, Rolling Pins, Bon Appetit, April 7, 2008

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