The pandemic led many of us to the kitchen, where our hands sought refuge in baking everything from sourdough to croissants. And while many home cooks are content to stick to the basics, some of us are ready to take our baking game to the next level. If you’re among us, you’ll want to check out Brod & Taylor’s 12-inch Compact Dough Sheeter.

If you’ve tried making croissants, danishes, sticky buns or pains au chocolát by hand, you know how time-consuming and difficult it can be to create paper-thin layers of butter and flour by hand. Bakeries employ bulky motorized machines that take up as much space as a minivan. We’re fans of this compact, hand-operated sheeter that fits on a kitchen table, then folds up for storage.

The unit works like a tabletop pasta machine. You place a thick blanket of dough onto the sheeter’s nonstick board, adjust the roller gap to your desired thickness, then crank a handle to advance the dough and board between the rollers. Narrow the roller gap a little more with each pass, just like you would when making sheets of pasta.

The sheeter can roll doughs to as thin as 1 mm, which is ideal for delicate pastries and some pastas. The adjustable roller system allows for precise control and produces a dough with uniform thickness throughout.

Our croissants and pains au chocolát didn’t turn out as pretty as the ones at Swiss Pastry Shop, but no one in our kitchen complained. We found more success when we pivoted to cinnamon rolls, shortbread cookies, pie crusts and even pizza crusts.

One thing to note is that the dough sheeter does require about 4 feet of clear workspace for the dough board to travel back and forth through the rollers. A 15.5-inch version requires even more room but can handle a bigger batch of dough. If you have the space, though, and are a committed baker, the 12-inch sheeter is a worthwhile investment. $595, includes free shipping.

Michael Hiller is a North Texas journalist and contributor to 360West.