A pastry wheel is a versatile tool used to cut, shape, and decorate dough. It comes in various shapes, including crimpers, benders, and bladed cylinders, and can be used for a variety of tasks such as cutting strips of dough, creating patterns, and venting. It is easy to use, dishwasher safe, and usually inexpensive. Cleaning requires soaking and scrubbing to remove flour residue.
A pastry wheel is a tool used to cut, shape, or shape dough. Pastry wheels come in a variety of shapes, from cutters designed to produce uniform strips of dough to crimpers for pies. Some companies even make the wheels with removable inserts, allowing bakers to choose from a number of options. If you do a lot of baking, a pastry wheel is a very handy thing to have around, and well worth the money, as these tools are usually inexpensive.
As the name suggests, the wheel is designed to rotate. Generally, the tool consists of a handle that can be mounted on an axle that may hold something like a trimmer blade or rotary bender to produce a clean, even edge. The best pastry cutters have wide, soft handles that make them easy to hold and use, and most are designed to be dishwasher safe, reducing the risk of a buildup from butter and other pastry products.
One form of a pastry wheel is the bender, which, as the name suggests, bends. Crimpers can be used to create fluted and ridged edges when crimping pastries such as turnovers and cakes. Incidentally, they can also be used to make ravioli, which have a classic, curled edge. Most crimpers will cut further than the crimp, when applied with enough pressure.
A pastry wheel may also contain a bladed cylinder which is used to cut pastry and dough. Many have several blades, allowing bakers to cut a piece of dough into strips that can be used for lattices and decorations, and this design can also be used as a pastry cutter. Other pastry cutters have very wide blades that are intended to produce wide, uniform strips of pastry that can be used for a variety of tasks.
A single blade wheel can be used to quickly and cleanly cut through pasta, producing an even edge, and can also be used to score pasta to create patterns and designs or to leave air holes for venting. Some companies make pastry wheels with a two-wheel design; depending on which side the dough faces, the bakers can fold or cut it.
When cleaning a pastry wheel, be careful of patches of flour, which can stick like glue to the wheel and handle of this kitchen tool. If the wheel gets stuck in flour, soak and scrub it before attempting to wash it, to make sure the flour doesn’t turn into a crust that will be impossible to remove.
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