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The History of
Rolling Pins
Cheryl
Miller
Wooden rolling pins used for flattening piecrust dough, cookies, wafers,
biscuits, and crackers have been around for decades. Many rolling pins featured
inlays of darker woods, such as cherry, mahogany, applewood, beech, pine,
sycamore, or walnut. The rolling pins we are most familiar with have two handles
with a heavy wooden cylinder that turns unaided between them on ball bearings.
This pin has a smooth action which makes it easy to produce dough of an
even thickness.
Wooden rolling pins are the oldest and most common, some being nothing
more than cylinders of wood. However, knob-ended rolling pins preceded those
with the handles carved in one piece with the roller.
These utensils were usually homemade until they began to be factory
produced in the mid-19th century.
Fancy wooden rolling pins were beautifully carved or turned and many were
created by Shakers. Cooks often
special ordered special rolling pins with different ends for special
needs.
Unique rolling pins had embellishments which were typically in the shapes
of hearts, circles, or diamonds. Sailors
at sea carved distinctive rolling pins of lignum vitae with inlaid pegs of whale
bone to present to their lady love.
Types of
Rolling Pins
- French rolling pins are longer
than the American ones and do not have handles.
They are straight or tapered hardwood cylinders with a thick center.
French chefs claim that it is more important to learn to get the feel of the
dough into your palms through the use of such simple rolling pins.
- Old hand-carved wooden rolling
pins with grooves cut into their barrels were used for making cookies,
particularly the Springerle, a typical anise-flavored Christmas cookie
from Austria and Baveria (Springerle is German for little
knight or jumping horse). The
designs on these pins were the quaint figures of animals, fruits, and
flowers, each carved in a square outline. The rolling pins, still being made
in Germany today, give the cookies a ridged surface.
- Hollow, bottle-type glass rolling
pins with screw caps or cork closures originally came filled with baking
powder, vinegar, cocoa, or bath salts.
Emptied and filled with cracked ice or ice water, these pins chilled
the dough and kept it at a good working temperature. However, some bakers
feel that these types of rolling pins tend to sweat from condensation and
deposit moisture all over your pastry.
- Elaborate, hollow, blown glass
rolling pins in clear emerald green, cobalt blue, and milk glass bore
enameled decorations and inscriptions.
Their nautical embellishments and mottoes hint that they were
probably gifts from sailors. Most
of these were English. Porcelain and glass rolling pins, look attractive but
they are far too fragile for everyday use.
- Pottery and china rolling pins
were popular in the 19th century.
Delft-type windmill and sailboat designs were most prevalent.
The blue-and-white Meissen onion pattern porcelain rolling pins may
date from the 17th century.
Blue Onion is simple elegance, an Oriental-motif, cobalt-on-white
pattern that brings to mind Oscar Wilde's famous quip "I find it harder
and harder every day to live up to my blue china." Created in 1739, it
was Meissen's first success in duplicating the Asian technique of the
coveted blue underglaze (painting on absorbent porcelain rather than on top
of the glaze).
- Stoneware and yellow ware rolling
pins were made during the 19th century. Large rolling pins of
this heavy, coarse, yellow pottery were sturdy tools. Today these scarce
rolling pins cost hundreds of dollars.
In 1912, Seastrand Catalog advertised a glazed stoneware roller that was
non-absorbent and revolved on polished wood handles.
Their motto – “A rolling stone gathers no moss... our new rolling
pin gathers no dough.”
-
Tin rolling pins usually had a companion tin pastry sheet.
Tin chilled well so the dough
was less likely to stick to a tin pastry sheet and roller and therefore,
flour was not needed to dust the work surface.
- Cast-iron rolling pins are rare
and it is likely that they were for some other purpose than cooking.
Source:
The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics, Bill Blackbeard
and Martin Williams (editors)
- Glass rolling pins were actually
used in early Victorian kitchens. They were popular gifts and may have been
given as love tokens by serious young gentlemen hoping to woo a young lady
for marriage.
-
Nailsea glass rolling pins were made from “end-of-the-day” leftover
glass by factory workers, who would sell them to earn extra income for their
families. Some glass rolling pins were manufactured as novelties with an
opening for storing sugar, salt or small cooking tools inside. These were
usually painted, often in unfired oil-colors, with inscriptions and scenes.
Their purpose seems to have been extraordinarily diverse, as described by
Edward Turleig: "As love-tokens to be hung in the kitchen while Jack
was at sea; as clandestine containers for rum or tea smuggled to avoid duty;
as convenient containers for sugar.”
The term "Nailsea glass" refers to the English glassware
which originated at the Nailsea glassworks, near Bristol, between 1788 and
1869. However, the techniques and designs of this factory were widely
copied, so glass of this type was, in fact, made as far away as Bristol,
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, St Helens and Warrington in Lancashire, Stourbridge in
Worcestershire and Alloa in Scotland.
-
Depression glass rolling pins were made during the 1930s and 1940s in an
assortment of colors. Today
collectors will find these glass collectibles cost hundreds of dollars.
- Nickel-plated metal rolling pins
(1920s) had wood handles. Sometimes an intentional rattle could be heard
from within. This may have been lead shot to make them heavier.
Over the years, the wooden rolling pin has remained popular and widely used.
By far, the best use of a rolling pin I could find: -
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The
American Woman Magazine, October 1920
“How to Improve the
Appearance: Making the Neck Pretty”
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Suggested Reading and References
Barlow, Ronald S.
1992. Victorian Houseware: Hardware and Kitchenware, Windmill
Publishing Company, CA, 375 pages.
Beard, James, Milton Glasser,
Burton Wolf, et al. 1975. The
Cooks’ Catalogue, Harper and Row Publishers, NY, 565 pages.
Franklin, Linda Campbell.
1964. Identification and Value Guide – 300 Years of Kitchen
Collectibles, 2nd Edition, Books Americana, 648 pages.
Franklin, Linda Campbell.
1997. Identification and Value Guide – 300 Years of Kitchen
Collectibles, 4th Edition, Krause Publications, Wisconsin, 648
pages.
Lantz, Louise K.
1970. Old American Kitchenware, 1725-1925, Thomas Nelson, Inc.,
New York and Everybody’s Press, PA, 290.
Plante, Ellen M.
1991. Kitchen Collectibles: An Illustrated Price Guide,
Wallace-Homestead Book Company, PA, 164 pages.
Miller, Gary and K.M. Scotty
Mitchell. 1991. Price Guide to
Collectible Kitchen Appliances: From
Aerators to Waffle Irons, 1900-1950, Wallace-Homestead Book Co., PA, 179
pages.
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