Dough roller

A kitchen tool designed for making dumpling and gyoza skins. Standard rolling pins are sized for pie crust and pasta sheets; a single-skin roller is a different problem.

The brief was efficiency and feel. Each skin gets one pass: center the dough ball, roll once with rotation, you have a skin. Repeat eighty times for a family meal. The handle had to stay comfortable across that volume of repetition, the roller weighted enough that the user glides rather than presses, and the whole thing easy to wash and dry between batches.

The form is a stout hardwood roller with a soft-grip handle, mass-balanced so the cylinder's inertia does the work and the user's wrist doesn't have to. The wood is finished with a food-safe oil that sits in the grain rather than sealing the surface, so the roller stays grippy on flour-coated dough and recovers between uses. Compact enough to keep on a hook by the stove. A small object that quietly changes a familiar kitchen task.