The Rolling Dough Cutter: Pieces That Share Their Edges

"A further object is to provide a device by which cakes of a uniform size may be cut from the dough, leaving a minimum amount of material to be worked over the second time". "The strips of tin being narrow, this arrangement of parts leaves a blank space back of the blades, which is adapted to receive the dough when cut, thus avoiding the difficulty heretofore experienced in cake-cutters of the dough sticking between the blades or in the pocket formed by the rear edges of the blades coming together."

Take the lids of two tin cans as the disks and punch a hole in the centre of each. Cut six strips of tin 8 cm long and 1.5 cm wide, with a tab 5 mm long at each end. Cut six short slots round the edge of each disk, evenly spaced and pointing at the centre. Push each strip's tabs through a slot in each disk, with its edge flush with the rims, and fold the tabs flat. File every edge smooth. Bend steel wire into a long loop for a handle, with its two ends bent inward through the holes in the disks, so the drum turns freely. Rub 200 g of butter into 300 g of flour with 100 g of sugar and press it into a dough. Roll half into a sheet 24 cm wide, three drum widths, roll the cutter over it and lift the pieces onto a baking sheet. Cut the other half with a round cutter and weigh the scraps from each. Bake at about 180 °C until pale golden.

**John R. Listle** of Kalispell, Montana, filed US 801,466 on 3 November 1904; it was patented 10 October 1905. His blades were narrow strips of tin rigidly secured at each end to the disks, and his handle a single bent wire whose two strands were held together by a sleeve. **Honest limits.** The notebook treats the sheet as a perfect rectangle; a rolled sheet has ragged edges, so both methods leave some edge scraps. Sizes are examples. Your two weighings of scraps are the measurement.