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See why.Rolling Pins
Tapered or straight, with handles or without, made from silicone, metal, or wood—what works best when you’re ready to roll?
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What You Need To Know
Choosing a rolling pin used to be simple: Almost all were made from wood, and the only question was whether to go with handles or without. Nowadays, the choices for materials and designs could take hours to consider. To see if innovation could trump the tried and true, we rounded up nine pins—including our former favorite—in wood, metal, and silicone, tapered and straight, with handles and without, priced from $9.99 to $45. We wanted an all-purpose pin, so we set to work rolling out pie crust, yeasted rolls, cookies, and pizza.
Since rolling out pie crust is job No. 1, we started there. A good rolling pin should spread this finicky, delicate dough easily and smoothly, without sticking or tearing. A handled pin of nonstick-coated steel looked promising, but it was so heavy it smashed dough, generating cracks and sticking. This metal pin lifted whole swaths of dough onto its surface. And because of their smooth finishes, pins in metal and silicone couldn’t hold a dusting of flour (an old trick to keep pie dough from sticking). Was wood the only way to go? Maybe, but some of the wood pins were also too smooth, resisting a flour dusting. The dusting clung best to slightly rough-textured wood, which gripped dough just enough to roll it out.
In the test kitchen, we’ve long preferred handle-free French rolling pins for flattening pie dough, since they give us a direct sense of the dough’s thickness and of how hard we are pressing down. Most of our tapered French models weighed less than the handled pins but had just enough heft for this task. One of our handled pins also worked well—at just under 2 pounds, it was slightly less maneuverable but didn’t leave us with cracked, crushed dough.
Should a pin be straight or tapered? One tapered model left pie dough thick at the edges; others rolled evenly. We got out our measuring tape and discovered that the problematic pin started tapering from closer to its middle. So fat-bellied that it resembled a lozenge, it provided only 4 inches of straight, flat rolling surface. Considering that the bottom of a standard pie plate measures 7 inches across, pins that stay straight for at least 6 inches function best.
The dramatically tapered pin was truly cumbersome when we rolled out stiff gingerbread cookie dough, leaving hills and valleys in its path. For this task, the heaviest rolling pins with the longest untapered expanse worked best. Featherweight pins did almost none of the work for us, and we found ourselves going back over the same areas to get a 1/8-inch thickness for cutting out cookies. Plus, using these lighter pins took so long that the dough had ample time to warm up, making it...
Everything We Tested
Highly Recommended
- Ease of use: 3 stars out of 3.
- Performance: 3 stars out of 3.
This pin capably handled dough for pie, cookies, pizza, and yeasted rolls, with gentle weight and a slightly textured surface that holds a dusting of flour for less sticking. Its long, straight shape made achieving even dough thickness and rolling out larger disks easy.
- Ease of use: 3 stars out of 3.
- Performance: 3 stars out of 3.
Our previous favorite pin still offers superb control and maneuverability; it’s heavy enough to roll out pie dough easily yet light enough to change direction quickly. Its gradual taper provides 6 flat inches for rolling in its center—less than our winner.
Recommended
- Ease of use: 2 stars out of 3.
- Performance: 3 stars out of 3.
This traditional pin flattened dough for cookies, rolls, and pizza with ease. The lone drawback: It’s a tad heavy, making it somewhat less maneuverable than our top-ranked pins. Its handles are comfortably placed for good leverage.
Recommended with reservations
- Ease of use: 2 stars out of 3.
- Performance: 2.5 stars out of 3.
Made by hand, this elegant, lightweight pin tapers at the ends, offering 7 flat inches—more than enough for pie dough. But its smooth finish resisted a dusting of flour, and it balked at rolling out stiff cookie dough.
- Ease of use: 2 stars out of 3.
- Performance: 2 stars out of 3.
This pin quickly rolled out dough thanks to its heft, but it tapers too dramatically, leaving only 4 inches of flat center. It failed to roll gingerbread cookie dough evenly and left pie dough thick at the edges.
- Ease of use: 2 stars out of 3.
- Performance: 2 stars out of 3.
One drawback of this tapered pin was its weight: Although maneuverable and brilliant with pie dough, rolling out stiff cookie dough or pizza dough was far more difficult. Its dramatic taper gave us a little more than 4 inches of flat rolling surface.
- Ease of use: 2 stars out of 3.
- Performance: 2 stars out of 3.
This straight pin features screw-on disks to help roll dough to a specific thickness (1/16, 1/4, or 3/8 inches). Too bad we needed to roll cookies to 1/8 inch. Its short span forced our hands close together as we rolled, providing poor leverage.
Not Recommended
- Ease of use: 1 stars out of 3.
- Performance: 2 stars out of 3.
So much for the nonstick coating on this heavyweight pin: Unless perfectly chilled, it lifted dough onto its surface in swaths. And its barrel spun in place when faced with rolling stiff cookie dough between sheets of parchment paper.
- Ease of use: 1 stars out of 3.
- Performance: 1 stars out of 3.
This heavy pin had a short barrel and long, removable handles (to fit in the dishwasher), but this positioned hands too far from the rolling action. Its silicone surface promised smooth rolling, but pie crust persistently stuck to the barrel.
Reviews you can trust
Reviews you can trust
The mission of America’s Test Kitchen Reviews is to find the best equipment and ingredients for the home cook through rigorous, hands-on testing. We stand behind our winners so much that we even put our seal of approval on them.
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