Some people are wizards with cake and cookie decorating.  I am not one of them.  Theory just doesn’t translate into execution.  That why I love the idea of the embossed rolling pins sold by Embossed Co.

They’re easy to use — I mean, they’re rolling pins — but there’s a little bit of a learning curve, so let me share what I had a little trouble with and what worked for me.

What is An Embossed Rolling Pin?

First, in case you haven’t seen these before, let me tell you what these are.  Basically, these are your standard, traditional rolling pins…except that the outer layer is laser-engraved to create an embossed design.

The result is a something you can roll across cookie dough, pie crust, etc. to create an imprinted design in the dough, with virtually no effort at all.

It’s easy, but there are a couple things that can get in the way, and they mostly have to do with what dough you use.

Cookies Rise

You don’t even realize how much some cookie recipes rise until you try to do something like this with them!  I had a few fails in the beginning, and the problem was always the same — the cookie recipe puffs too much, so they go into the oven nicely imprinted, but they come out of the oven with the design obscured.  Bummer.

The bad news is, that means you probably don’t want to plan on using your new rolling pin for an important event the day you get it.  It might take some trial-and-error to figure out which recipes work well with it.  The good news is, once you’ve figured out which recipe(s) work(s) well, you’ll be home-free.

I used my Paleo Cookies, and that recipe works okay if you omit the baking powder and be sure to chill the dough before rolling it out.  (If you use the baking powder, they rise too much.  If you don’t chill it, the dough will probably be too sticky.)  It still might not be the best recipe for this, but it’s good to know it works, for those of you with limited dietary options.  (As you can probably tell from the pictures, we used the chocolate variation for these.)

Be sure to dust the surface really well before rolling the cookies out.  I had more trouble with the cookies getting “mushed” to the counter and not wanting to come up after I’d cut them out than I did with the dough sticking to the rolling pin.  And then gently dust the top surface and the rolling pin surface before rolling them.  (If you don’t get it floured enough and accidentally get some dough gummed into your pin, you can just gently scrub it with a brush, like a vegetable brush or bottle brush.)

And press firmly.  You might need to press down harder than you think.  My “pretty” cookies that I then cut out with a cookie cutter had fairly shallow impressions and didn’t bake up quite as nicely.  I gathered up the scraps and rolled them back out, cutting those apart with a bench knife so I didn’t waste any of the edges, and the designs on those came out better because I pressed harder.  So I’m sure future batches of cookies will come out even better.

(By the way, these chocolate cookies are “floured” with arrowroot powder.  Much of it will absorb as the cookies bake.  With cake, you can mix some cocoa into your flour or starch to make it stand out less when dusting the pan, etc.  With cookies, I’m pretty sure that would be gross.)

Cookies aren’t the only thing you can use these embossed rolling pins on.  Pie crusts are another easy option.  And of course they come in more than one design.  This one is a paisley floral, but you can get snowflakes (one of my favorites, but a little weird for summer cookies!), other botanicals, reindeer, and even paw prints if you want to mark out biscuits for your furry friends.