Pastry fork

A pastry fork, dessert fork, pie fork or cake fork is a fork designed for eating pastries and other desserts from a plate. The fork has three or four tines. The three-tine fork has a larger, flattened and beveled tine on the side while the four-tine fork had tines connected together with the bars ("barred") and beveled. The barred designs are mostly dated pre-1920.

Pastry forks range in size from 100 millimetres (4 in) (in English pastry fork sets) to 190 millimetres (7+1⁄2 in) as serving pieces in silverware (sterling and silver plate) place settings. In many fine place settings, the pastry fork and pie fork may be two separate forks as well.

It is typically designed so that it can be used with the right hand, while the left hand holds the plate. It therefore has the left side widened to be used like a knife to cut the food when pressed down on the plate. Left-handed pastry forks have the right side widened instead.

Pastry forks were part of the American "fanaticism for forks" in the late 19th century:

• etiquette books suggested avoiding the knife on pastry and cutting it with the edge of a fork instead since at least 1864;
• cheaper mass-produced forks had weaker tines, creating demand for new utensils capable of breaking through layers of food;
• Reed and Barton patented a "Cutting-Tined Fork" in 1869;
• thickened-tine forks were common since early 1880s.

Anna M. Mangin was awarded a patent on March 1, 1892, for a "pastry fork" intended to mix the pastry dough. The U.S. patent 470005A, despite its name, described a kitchen tool for mashing, and not the table pastry fork.