What is a Pastry Blender?

A pastry blender is a simple yet powerful tool. Also known as a pastry cutter or dough blender, it helps chefs cut butter into flour to make dough for high-quality baked goods. In spite of its usefulness, this tool is still somewhat unknown. If you would like to know more, this article explains what a pastry blender is, why it’s useful and how to use it.

What Is A Pastry Blender?

Parts of a Pastry Blender

This u-shaped kitchen utensil has a simple design that consists of two parts:

• Handle - Made of plastic, metal or wood, the handle allows users to guide the sharp blades through butter. As with any kitchen utensil, it’s important to choose an ergonomically-designed model for maximum comfort and efficiency.
• Tines - All pastry blenders have 3-5 metal blades or thin wires called tines that cut through the butter. The tines are curved so you can cut butter stuck to the curved side of a bowl, making a pastry blender a versatile tool that you can use on almost any surface.

Use In Baking

At first glance, a pastry blender may seem like an unnecessary gadget with limited functionality. However, it’s actually very useful when cutting butter into flour because the sharp tines slice through butter effortlessly and chop it into small, pea-sized pieces that become coated with some of the dry ingredients. 

Although these small pieces of butter may seem like a small detail in the overall recipe, they make a big difference in regards to texture. As the dough bakes in the oven, the pea-sized pieces of butter release steam, creating small air pockets within the pie crust, biscuit or other baked good. The result is a tender dough that’s flaky, crumbly and incredibly delicious.

Why Use a Pastry Blender?

Although forks, knives, a food processor or even your hands can be used to chop butter and flour together, using a pastry blender is better for a number of reasons:

It’s Cleaner

Although cutting butter into flour can be done by hand, it’s very messy. Using a food processor keeps your hands clean, but it dirties an appliance that’s often difficult to clean. But when using a pastry cutter with a large handle and simple design, your hands don’t get messy and there’s minimal cleanup.

It’s Faster

In a video on the Little Dragon Baking YouTube channel, Amy Lynn compared using forks vs a pastry blender when making dough. Although both methods worked, the pastry blender allowed her to do the same amount of work in about half the time. Given the pastry cutter’s efficiency, she recommends buying one even if you only make pie dough a few times per year.

It’s More Controlled

Even though a food processor can cut butter into dry ingredients faster than a pastry blender, processing the dough for just a few seconds too long will result in a sand-like texture that may not be appropriate for all recipes. However, using a pastry blender requires a bit of physical effort, so users are less likely to accidentally overmix the dough and ruin the consistency. 

What Types of Pastries Can You Make With a Dough Cutter?

Since pastry cutters help make dough that’s tender, flaky and crumbly, they’re great tools to have if you want to make the best baked goods, such as:

• Pie Crust - Many chefs will tell you the combination of cold butter and shortening makes the best pie crust. Since cold shortening has a texture similar to butter, cutting in the shortening with a pastry blender makes sense.
• Biscuits - Although many home cooks combine butter, shortening or lard with their hands when making biscuits, using a pastry cutter makes the job faster, easier and less messy.
• Scones - Similar to biscuits but with cream and eggs, these classic British baked goods will turn out even crumblier and more tender if you use a dough blender to work the fat into the flour.
• Crumble Topping - The crunchy top of a Dutch apple pie is hard to resist. While this crumble topping can definitely be made by hand, using a pastry blender to cut the butter, flour and sugar together is faster and more efficient.

How to Use a Pastry Blender

The basic, straightforward design of a pastry blender makes it very easy to use:

• Step 1. Chill the butter (and pastry cutter) - It’s much easier to work with cold butter, so make sure it’s cold–but not frozen–before you begin. Although it’s not required, you may even want to chill the pastry blender and mixing bowl for 30-60 minutes so the butter can stay cool for longer.
• Step 2. Add the dry ingredients - Place the flour, sugar and any other dry ingredients the recipe calls for in the bowl or on the surface where you will be using the pastry blender.
• Step 3. Cut the butter - Grasp the handle and push the tines into the butter with a rocking motion. Lift up and then press down into another area of the butter. Don’t worry if the dough sticks to the tines: it will fall off as you continue blending.
• Step 4. Reach pea-sized pieces of butter - Continue cutting until the pieces of butter are the size of peas.
• Step 5. Scrape the pastry blender - When you’re done cutting the butter, use a knife to scrape off any dough that’s sticking to the tines. Then, use the pastry blender to cut this excess dough into pea-sized pieces, too.
• Step 6. Proceed with the recipe - Once the butter is cut into the flour, follow the recipe to  finish making the dough.