KITCHEN GADGET - Rolling Pin Rings

You've seen me post, multiple times, that I have trouble rolling a smooth dough.  I get hills and valleys, lumps and bumps....wreaks havoc on my sugar cookie cutouts, resulting in icing flowing off the edges and other unsightly blemishes.

A friend suggested getting some flat pieces of wood as "markers" like she used to do when rolling out clay in her art studio.  Another friend said her mom gave her some rolling pin rings.  I asked my hubby to pick up some wood trim pieces at 1/4 inch and 1/2 inch thickness if he could find them and then I ran across some rolling pin rings on Amazon.  They look like big rubber bands and had various depths, so I ordered them.

I was glad that the 3 smallest rings did fit easily on my French dowel rolling pin...but because of the slope on the end of the pin, they don't roll out dough "as measured" on the instructions. 

You can see the slope of a French dowel causes the rings
to attach at different "depths"

The worse part was the ring that was supposed to roll at 3/8" requires you to put the 1/4" ring on first and then put the 3/8" ring on top of it (making a stacked ring) and the actual thickness is 5/8, not 3/8 as advertised.  As soon as I applied pressure, the outer ring popped off anyway...so it's pretty useless for a thicker roll-out.

The two rings together measure 5/8" - the white can't be used independently for 3/8"

You can see that at the thickest point of the rolling pin
the largest ring just hangs loosely

When pressure applied to roll - this is what happened

These were packaged by 3C Systems, Inc. out of Wynnewood, PA.  The Amazon link said they were Regency Wraps Rolling Hills Rolling Pin Rings (whew, what a name).  The colors are different and the packaging was different than displayed on the Amazon web page...hmmm.  They cost $6.39 for the package.  Since I threw the packaging away, I really can't return them.  I'll use the 3 smaller sizes...but the largest is useless.  I make thicker sugar cookies because I decorate them and don't want them to break...this is not going to do the trick!

I do have a silicone rolling pin - but it is quite large and these would never fit on it...even the white one.

Another issue I noted with rolling pin rings...To get a large amount of dough even - you have to keep the rings on the board and off the dough...so your dough round or your dough square could be no wider than 11 to 13 inches, (if using a dowel) depending on the thickness (how far onto the dowel the ring goes to be stable).  Frankly, I doubt these were ever intended to fit on a French rolling pin...it said a "standard" rolling pin...but these days...what is a standard rolling pin's length and circumference?  There are so many choices!!!

Hate it when something doesn't work the way I expect and I've thrown away the packaging.  Live and learn!

Bon Appetit, Y'all!