Pastry Jagger

If you are one of those persons, who just love to make some unusual, decorative pastry dishes, this amazing kitchen tool is just right for you. Pastry jagger is one simple, but useful kitchen utensil, consisting out of wheel knife attached to a wooden handle. It is used mainly for cutting folded pastry, but that is just the traditional usage of it- it can do much more. Its round disk knife is designed to cut decorative jagged edges. It is very easy to make most various shapes from dough with it, since it produces clean, even edges. You can make festive dishes with it, like lasagne, ravioli, pierogi, crackers, pie crusts, lattice crusts and many other pastry dishes.

I inherited this pastry wheel from my grandmother, and as I can remember, she used it to make various dough goodies with it. My mother then continued to use it, and now it is one of my favourite kitchen gadgets. As you can see on the photo, this pastry jagger is very old. The metal part, in which the handle lays, is quite loose, and the wheel itself is not so perfect, as with the new models of this tool, but I will not change it for the world. I simply enjoy working with it, and mostly I make the old pastry dishes my grandmother made for me when I was a kid. That makes me happy and nostalgic at the same time, and the dish turns always beautiful and fulfilling. The fluted pastry wheel is for sure one of the craziest tools that simply dare you to be creative during baking. You do not have to have any kind of special skills; just let your imagination make new shapes from the old dough recipes. You will enjoy for sure.

My pastry wheel made my grandfather for his wife. He was a handy craftsman, and in those times, these kinds of kitchen gadgets could not be purchased, just made by hand. The people would simply share the method of work among them, the pastry jaggers made skilled people and these tools would be inherited from one generation to another.

Like there is no firm evidence on whom and when the first pastry was made, there is also not a solid data on when or which nation invented the pastry wheel. It is just certain, that it was somewhere in ancient times. One relief carving on a pillar that depicts this exquisite kitchen tool exists near the town of Rome, and it is believed that was made by Etruscans (ancient Italian civilization) somewhere in 4th century B.C.  This does not prove the fact that they were the first to make it, but it surely confirms the fact that people used it for a very long time. Also, one of the most exquisite and unique pastry cutters were made by the English fishermen, who carved this kitchen tool out of the whale teeth when far from the home, and these old ornamental kitchen tools can be seen in Museums around the globe.

Interesting thing is that this simple kitchen utensil can be found under many names like fluted pastry wheel, ravioli cutter, pie cutter, jagging wheel, jagger wheel, fluted pastry wheel, jagged-edge pastry wheel, pasta cutter, dough spur, etc. Very similar kitchen gadget is nowadays usually made out of plastic or metal and can be purchased under the name the fluted pastry wheel, but the true vintage pastry jaggers are handmade, most of them have beautifully crafted wooden handles, and if you are lucky, your grandmother introduced you with it when you were munching your favourite pie.