I am trying to find a list of woods that I can use for a pastry board. I have tried to use the seach feature but no luck. Could someone please point me to the right web site or list or ???. I want to make an adjustable pastry board for my niece and wanted to do more than just hard maple.
yos,
marshall
Replies
http://www.exotichardwoods-northamerica.com/index.htm
This site has quite a bit of useful information on plenty of different hardwoods.
Jesse David
"Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before," Bokonon tells us. "He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way."
There are many woods that might show up on a "toxic" list which are still OK to use for cutting boards. They are a problem to work with (sawdust) but not really a problem as a cutting board. For ideas, I'd suggest you do a Google search on cutting boards and exotic. Click here for results.
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Another proud member of the "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
I made wy wife a large pastry board (30" x 30") from Sassafras wood a few years ago , finished it with butcher block oil. It still looks and works just fine.My wife loves it. It's only a half inch thick and sence Sassafras is not a heavy wood it's easy to handle. Also it's not expensive.
M3,
For me, safe is not the biggest issue when it comes to wood choices for this type of thing. Most woods are safe. You want woods that are durable and beautiful. Durability alone is not enough; beauty alone is not enough. You could make a board out of lignum vitae, but it wouldn't be practical.
Here's a list of woods I often use when making cutting boards and butcher blocks, in rough order of preference:
Maple
Walnut
Mahogany
Cherry
Bloodwood
Padauk
Oak
Purpleheart
Ash
Many woodworkers stay away from oak, because of its open grain. However, oak has bacteria-fighting properties that other woods don't have.
A note about padauk and purpleheart: they look beautiful when you deliver the boards, but their color loses depth within a couple of months, depending on the conditions they are in.
One wood that has been showing up a lot lately is bamboo. I have not tried it yet in my cutting boards, but I may experiment soon. I don't prefer its look, but it seems a lot of people like it. It has a contemporary appearance, for lack of a better word.
Edited 2/27/2005 7:55 am ET by Matthew Schenker
Thank You for the information. I was concerned that certain types of wood would not be safe for food prep. The Oak is very interesting. My wife is concerned that Walnut will cause reactions in people who have problems eating foods in contact with peanut/nut products. Interesting group of woods, now to design a simple system to allow the pastry board to vary in height between 1/8" and 1/2" as measured from the top of the pastry frame, where the rolling pen will ride. Thanks again for the help, especially the information on purpleheart.
yos,
Marshall
Marshall, your wife's concern about a peanut allergy from Walnut is unfounded.
Peanuts are a vegetable, grown in the ground. No relation to nuts, other than by name, since nuts are the seeds in fruit (rather than vegetable), which grow from a blossom. I am sure there is somebody that is allergic to everything if we look far enough, but it is my understanding that the relatively widespread peanut allergy is not affected by walnuts, walnut wood, nor walnut oil. ________________________Charlie Plesums Austin, Texashttp://www.plesums.com/wood
Hi Matthew,
I am thinking of making a cutting board and a end-grain chopping board with Teak wood. Got a fair bit of recycled teak wood from old broken furnitures. Any comment?
epo
epo,
I haven't used teak in my boards, but there is no reason not to. Teak is very attractive and pretty hard. I say go for it. Whenever I try a new wood, I make a tester first, to see if there are any glue-up issues or anything else you don't like about the particular wood.Let me know how it turns out.
Hi,
Will let you know when I start on the a teak end-grain cutting board.
So far I only use epoxy glue for the ash end-grain chopping/cutting boards . I do not have any problem. Epoxy glue would probably hold the Teak wood as well.
epo
epo,
From my limited experience with epoxies, I'd say it would be strong enough, but difficult to work with.I have used Titebond III for the majority of my cutting boards, and I have started using Gorilla Glue more often lately. I have never had one fail, even though I know people soak them in the sink, and I have a suspicion that one or two people have even put them in the dishwasher.I have spoken with woodworkers who make bowls for fancy restaurants. They said they use polyurethane glue (like Gorilla Glue) because it can withstand severe wash cycles like a commercial dishwasher. I took that as a research finding!
I haven't made any pastry boards but made a numb er of cutting boards. I found that alternating maple and walnut strips you have a beautiful cutting board and the joints don't separate at the ends. Maple to maple the joints tend to separate and could be down right unhealthy.
"Maple to maple the joints tend to separate and could be down right unhealthy."I don't understand your comment, above. I've never heard anything suggesting a maple butcher block cutting board might be unhealthy. What leads you to think so? -Jazzdogg-
Whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you're right.
Jazz, I think he was referring to the crack left by the joint seperation as being unhealthy, due to food particles remaining there.
Woody
I just finished repairing a cutting board that was made up of 10 strips of maple glued together ( 1/4 cut ) The strips had separated at the ends by approx 1/32" and food had accumulated in the separations - - not a healthy situation. My approach in making cutting boards is to alternate strips of maple and walnut. So far, they have not separated at the ends.
With all due respect, and with the intent of not having newbies misled by your comments... the cutting board didn't separate because of the type of wood used, as is your contention. It separated because of a poor, or incorrect, glue up of the board.Maple and walnut are a good combination, but maple alone glued up as a cutting board is the standard in the industry and has no "separation" issues if glued up correctly.
Naturally, a separation in any cutting board will cause a bacteria build up, but the maple is not the issue, the crack is.
thnxscottd.scottdDamschroder Scott Furniture[email protected]A craftsman needs three things: Accuracy, Technique, and Quality. Accuracy can be set; technique can be learned; but quality must be bought and built.
t.y. I appreciate your reply.
this may be heresy to suggest this in this forum, but wood isn't a great material for pastry chefs to work on. A chunk of marble or granite is far better because it stays cool and is relatively non-stick. My wife, who graduated from the Cordon Bleu in the pastry and baking specialty, never uses a board when working, she works directly on our granite countertops.
If your niece is serious about her baking, you might consider a board that has a piece of marble inlaid in it (you can usually get smaller pieces easily and inexpensively from shops that work with this material). This would also give you more options with regard to the wood.
Hello all, just wanted to put something in here. My son is a nationally renowned pastry chef, check link here
Food & Wine | Roasted Peach Pies with Cream.
I made him a pastry table a few years ago. Sorry, no photo, but the top was a marble slab I found at a flea market, I made the table support out of solid walnut, complete with slots for various tool he uses. He loves it. Problem at the moment is that the slab cracked in transit after his divorce. . I am trying to figure out how to get it back together again. the edges are true, maybe a small crack but not even noticable, I currently have it clamped together in the shop. What should I use? Gorilla glue? epoxy? Anything else?
Thanks
F E
Eddie,
Epoxy comes to mind for the marble glueup. I think it'd be stronger and more long lasting. You might give one of the epoxy makers a call to get their input.
John
Do a google search with these exact words - Marble adhesive. It comes up with some results for exactly what you need. Shane
Shane,
Thanks, i did the search, found way too many results, will have to leave that for another night! getting late, and a long day tomorrrow. I appreciate your help!
F E
I built a marble counter top out of 2 pieces of recycled marble. I cut the edges to meet as close as possible and then used epoxy and dust from the cutting mixed with epoxy to fill in any voids. This was the suggestion from the stone mason who lives accross the street from me who helped me. It has held up great for the last 5 years now.
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