Norpro 18-inch Tapered French Rolling Pin, Beechwood

A tapered rolling pin gives you more control than a pin with handles, because your palms rest directly on the wood and feel the thickness of the dough. Norpro’s 18-inch French-style pin, also called a French dowel, is thickest in the middle and narrows toward each end, which makes it easy to pivot and roll a round pie crust without turning the dough.

It is turned from a single piece of beechwood with no handles or joints to loosen or trap flour. At 18 inches long, it rolls a crust for a 10-inch pie plate in a few passes and is light enough to lift and flip a sheet of dough over a tart pan.

Use it for pie and tart crusts, cookie dough and pasta sheets. Dust the pin and the counter lightly with flour and roll from the center outward, giving the dough a quarter turn now and then. Holiday bakers buy it along with the Norpro pastry blender, the bench scraper and the silicone pie crust shield.