Walked into a bakery supply store in Denver and saw zero pastry brushes on the shelf

I always thought you needed a fancy silicone brush for glazing danishes, but the old guy behind the counter handed me a clean paintbrush from the hardware aisle and said 'this is what we used in France.' Has anyone else tried using a cheap brush instead of spending $12 on the pastry version?

3 comments

3 Comments

margaret_taylor422mo ago

Hard disagree here. A cheap paintbrush might work once but those bristles can shed on your pastry and the wood handles soak up butter like crazy. Silicone brushes hold up better with heat and cleanup, so that $12 saves headaches down the road.

the_morgan2mo ago

Wait, is this one of those things I've been stubbornly wrong about my whole life? Because I'll admit it, I used to swear by cheap paintbrushes for buttering dough (figured hey, it's just butter, right?). But you make a really good point about the bristles shedding, I actually had a strand end up in a batch of croissants once and just assumed it was a fluke. The wood handle soaking up butter is something I never even considered, but now that you mention it, my pastry brush definitely feels greasy in a weird way after a few uses. I think you just converted me, I'm gonna grab one of those silicone ones next time I'm at the store.

adam_thompson531mo ago

Oh man, I actually read somewhere that professional bakers swear by those silicone ones for exactly this reason. Something about how the silicone doesn't hold onto bacteria like wood does either, which grossed me out a bit when I thought about it. I had the same issue with bristles shedding too, found a weird blue plastic strand in my danish once and that was it for me. The silicone ones are easier to clean too, you just toss them in the dishwasher and they're good as new.