My Newest Craigslist Purchase: Marble Pastry Board

Thanks to Craigslist, I took a 2 hour drive through Queens, New York to buy this item because it was $50 and you simply can't find them for so cheap.

This marble pastry board is a big help when making any type of pastry or dough that contains lots of butter that needs to stay hard. For instance, pie crusts or butter cookies. These are the more simple recipes...more complicated ones would be like croissants or any type of puff pastry.

I was trying to roll out some butter cookies..here's the recipe (http://www.williams-sonoma.com/recipe/chocolate-coated-orange-cookies.html)...and the butter was melting so fast that the dough was sticking to the wax paper. It was a terrible mess after making about 4 cookies. On a sheet of wax paper, I quickly took the dough to my tile kitchen floor and rolled out the cookies and together with a pastry scraper (pictured below) I finished them in no time. The cold floor enabled the butter to harden back up and slide onto the pan with ease! So, I am not so comfortable with the thought of always using my floor for my pie crusts and of course if you have a vinyl/linoleum floor it won't work at all. That's what the marble board is for!
pictures courtesy of www.williams-somona.com