Pastry Brushes

Pastry brushes are essential for applying egg washes and glazes to pastries and doughs, as well as for basting meats and oiling hard-to-reach crevices in Bundt pans. It’s a simple task, yet many brushes disappoint, coating unevenly or staining and retaining off odors and colors. So we put a dozen to the test to find the best.

Brushes are made from either natural or synthetic bristles. The former usually are boar or goat hair, while the latter are nylon, plastic or silicone. We used all of them to brush flour off dough, butter phyllo, baste barbecue sauce and spread butter on a hot pan. We also washed them repeatedly.

In all tasks, the goat hair brush from Fortunemee performed best. The bristles gave even coverage with a light touch, yet basted thick sauces with ease. Though the bristles warped after soaking, they remained durable. Our runner-up, a nylon Winco brush, proved versatile and effective, but its bristles stained easily, dried slowly and melted when subjected to high temperatures.

Silicone brushes struggled, especially with delicate tasks; the chunky bristles were too clumsy. Our weakest performers were two brushes from Carlisle’s Sparta line, including a stiff silicone brush that produced streaky coverage, and a high-heat version that was even worse. Though durable, both lacked the finesse needed for the job.