There are two main types of pastry cutter. I’ll call them “wire” vs “blade” design. The wire design are made of springy thin round metal hoops. The blade design tend to be stiffer/sharper, flat stamped pieces of metal.
The blade type cutters tend to be stiffer and cut through fat with less effort. However they also hold onto more fat between the blades. I find myself sometimes needing to scrap between each blade gap with a butter knife. And when it comes time to wash up it can be annoying to get these totally clean.
For that reason I prefer the wire type. Although these have their drawbacks as well. Both of the ‘modern’ wire type cutters I’ve bought have a screw that goes straight into either plastic or wood. Overtime this gets loose and stripped out and can not be sufficiently tightened anymore.
I also just bought this vintage cutter off eBay (the green one) which uses a bolt and a nut for tightening, much better construction. Although the wire hoops come to a much sharper point than the black handled cutter I am used to, so we’ll see how I feel about that once I get it cleaned up and have a chance to use it.
For now I have the wood handled one as the shop recommendation as it feels fairly sturdy, is the wire type I prefer, and you can’t argue the price.
But if you want to avoid this whole conversation, when I shoot my ‘minimalist’ biscuits recipe video I’ll be working in the fats by hand!
