We all know that a good worker never blames their tools but sometimes having the right tools makes things a whole lot easier. For example, having the right rolling pin for cake decorating.
When I first started dabbling in cake decorating, I used what we had, and what we had was a wooden rolling pin. It did the job just fine but there were a couple of things that meant it quickly because unfit for purpose:
1. Things stick
Especially if you are using an older wooden rolling pin, the chances of your icing sticking as you roll is quite high. This means you need a lot of icing sugar to prevent said stickiness. However, use too much and this causes your icing to dry out and causes more problems when you come to cover your cake, like ripping and cracking.
2. Size
Probably the wooden rolling pin that you have in your kitchen drawer that you inherited from your granny is the perfect size for making pies and pastries but try rolling out an area of fondant large enough to cover a celebration cake and you might have a few issues with evenness and smoothness.
3. Hygiene
Sorry to bring it up but those wooden rolling pins are potentially pretty absorbent. I mean, we don't really need to go into the details.
But never fear! The silicon rolling pin is here to save the day. And here is why I love mine (basically it's just the opposite of everything above but we'll go through it anyway)
1. Practically non stick
A light dusting of icing sugar and you are on your way to fondant rolling success. This is also really great news for when you are rolling out smaller pieces of fondant. No drying out and no clumps of icing sugar everywhere. Woo!
2. Size & Shape
Silicon rolling pins come in a variety of sizes: long ones which are great for rolling out fondant for cakes of all sizes, or smaller ones which are fab for rolling out smaller bits of fondant or rolling sugar paste super thin when making delicate sugar flowers. They are also a great shape – most silicone rolling pins don’t have handles at the end which is great news for rolling super smooth fondant.
3. Weight
There's a bit of weight behind a silicone rolling pin which makes rolling out fondant a whole bunch easier. We know rolling is a great exercise for toning up your arms* (*may not be backed by scientific evidence) but we don’t want to exhaust ourselves; a silicone rolling pin meets us half way.
4. Hygiene
Silicone rolling pins are perfectly happy to be washed in hot, soapy water and aren’t porous so they don’t soak in anything unwanted. Some high-quality ones are even dishwasher safe. Marvelous!
You don’t have to get as excited about a silicone rolling pin as I apparently do but I urge you to give them a chance and let me know if you think it makes a difference.
You can find the silicone rolling pin I currently use in the links below, one is an affiliate link that helps me and give me a little percentage of the sale, but feel free to use other normal link to amazon ❤️
Loads of love,
Vicky x