In the old days, a dasher was a special device that was used to mix, whip, or shake various liquids and mixtures, for example, dough, eggs, or cream. First dashers looked like long wooden sticks with hook twigs at one end. They were carved of a one-piece pine or a fir bough. It was not required to cut down a young tree for this purpose. Suitable woods were usually on the ground. Therefore, the masters needed to clean sticks from bark and resin. Then they filed the sticks down slightly so that house masters would not accidentally get a splinter.

Later, the variously shaped dashers appeared in everyday use. They looked like shovels, crosses, circles, or spirals. They were no longer cut as a whole detail but made of some separate parts. The handle was long to make the working process more comfortable, even for a deep vessel. Metal dashers were rarely found. Rich families used dashers with porcelain or faience working parts, which usually had wooden handles.

A dasher from the collection of Nizhnevartovsk Museum of Local History previously was a part of a wooden butter churn. It looks like a long stick with a cross on one edge, which is made of small boards and fixed with nails. It was lowered inside a butter churn through a hole in the lid. Cream had to be mixed until milk fat would separate and gathered into pieces, and then into a solid ball. People used to eat made butter with porridge, pancakes, and even boiled potatoes. Meat and fish were usually fried on “kitchen” butter, which was made of soured milk, not cream. It did not taste as well as usual butter served on the table.

Dashers were used not only for making butter. People used them to knead clay and lime to repair and whitewash their stoves and walls in their houses. Dashers were needed to turn over washing while boiling it in large pots, as well as to stir feed for livestock. Small dashers were required for cooking dough and kissel (starchy fruit jelly) and smashing boiled vegetables. The smallest items were used to beat up egg whites and yolks. Some housewives used to grasp the handles of the dashers between their palms and quickly rotated them. Therefore, it was easier to churn the mixture.