Fantastic Find Friday -- Dough EZ Pastry Mat

I'm actually really excited to tell you about today's Fantastic Find! I got to try out the Dough EZ Pastry Mat over Christmas. And I'm not going to lie...I was kind of "meh" about it to begin with. But it has changed my decorating life!!! I am IN LOVE with it! It's like parchment paper, but you don't get wrinkles and it doesn't slide all over the counter. NO FLOUR friends. No flour poufs that fly on your clothes. Or the floor. Or under the microwave. Which also means...no cleaning up that flour. Which also means...more time for other things! Like eating ice cream and "researching" on Pinterest!



I love it so much that I made you a video about it. And if you know me at all... that's pretty much true love right there. 

For those of you that don't want to watch the video, let me give you the quick details. Basically you put your dough on one side of the mat. Place the included guide sticks on the outside edges and the fold the other side over the top. (On the website, they put the sticks *under* the mat, but for some reason, it makes more sense to my brain to put it inside the mat. Then you just roll out your dough super easy. Unfold the mat and put a piece of parchment paper or wax paper on top of the dough. Put the left half of the mat back on top and flip the whole thing over. Peel off the right side of the mat and cut out your cookies!

The mat comes with 3 sets of guide sticks. One of them is 1/8" thick and the other two sets are both 1/4" thick. The 1/4" thick sticks have notches in them so you can build a pastry frame that is about 1" tall. You know, so you can make donuts and biscuits and umm...thicker stuff.

And when you're done rolling out cookies, you just give it a good wipe down with a towel. I counted and it takes me about 4 1/2 seconds to clean it off. Which is a good 20 minutes faster than cleaning up a counter covered in flour. I put my guide sticks and rolling pin inside the mat and then just roll it all up together.

So.... Dough EZ Pastry Mat --

PROS:
* It grips the counter and the dough, so no more "gut gripping" parchment paper to keep it from sliding around all over the place.
* No flour necessary (Unless your dough is super sticky in which case a light dusting might be necessary on the first roll out.) which means no cleaning up that flour.
* Easy to use, easy to clean, easy to store. (Have I told you I'm in love with it?!)

CONS:
* At $39.95 it definitely costs more than a box of parchment paper. (But you only have to buy it once.)
* Also, in order to protect your mat, you'll still need to use one sheet of wax paper or parchment paper for each rolling/cutting session, but you could conceivably wipe off that piece of parchment with a towel and keep re-using it.

You can learn more at the Dough EZ website or you can get one HERE.

What would YOU do with an extra twenty minutes?!