If you have just started trying your skills in the baking arena, you might have little or no idea of the tools you should have on the counter.
This guide aims to help you set up a baking kit for beginners with twelve essential kitchen tools.
1. Baking sheet
A baking sheet is a sheet of metal or a flat pan. It has raised edges, making it ideal for baking scones, cookies, and pastries. It also works as a roasting pan for fish, vegetables, and spatchcocked meat. Baking pans with ¾ inch sides at all corners is also called a cookie sheet or a baking sheet. It also helps to bake runny batters.
A proper cookie sheet has a rolling edge on one side to handle it, and the other sides are open for easily dish out baked goods.
2. Measuring cups and spoons
Baking needs accurate measurements. Hence, having a complete set of measuring cups and spoons with you is a must. Don’t assume that you could get away with one kind of cup or a spoon.
It would help if you had dry and wet measuring cups to measure all ingredients with precision. Make sure all these tools are within your reach as you would need them repeatedly as you bake.
3. Rubber/Silicone spatula
Thin, angled, single-prong spatulas are handy when you want to apply frosting in an even swipe. It also helps to loosen the edges of a stubborn cake. This tool is ideal for scraping those last bits of batter or dough from the baking pan.
Also, they are super-efficient for folding dry and wet ingredients. However, silicone spatulas or scrapers are more resistant to heat than rubber ones. It does the double duty of cooking eggs and sautéing.
4. Cooling rack
Never let your cookies, cupcakes, or cakes cool in the pan placed on the counter. The cooling rate at the bottom is prolonged as no air gets to the lower portion of the pan.
Baked items should cool on the racks or baking sheet. A cooling rack is an elevated wire rack where you can keep baked items cool. It allows air to circulate over backed goods. It releases the residual steam and prevents sogginess.
5. Food scale
This is one of the most critical items on the list. As mentioned earlier, baking is all about precision and accuracy. A slight mismeasure could lead to a horrific baking disaster. A small kitchen scale keeps all such happenings at bay.
It takes away the eyeballing and guesswork of measuring ingredients. You can set it to grams and use the tare function. Then, you could place a bowl on it and zero it out.
6. Fine-mesh sieve
Some baking recipes require sifting dry ingredients like sugar, flour, or cocoa powder. This step helps to filter out the lumps and make sure that you get a delicate batter.
It also helps when dusting powdered sugar to a completed pan of cookies or brownies. Not only this, but it also comes in handy when draining wet ingredients like quinoa or removing seeds from the raspberry sauce.
7. Stand mixer
An electric stand mixer lowers the hassle of whipping and mixing. Its standard attachments include a paddle, dough hook, and whip. It is enough to mix the batter, knead the dough, or whip egg whites. It is beneficial for all bakers as they need to make a dissolved batter.
8. Hand mixer
A hand mixer helps mix too thick doughs to whip by hand, but it doesn’t have enough volume for the stand mixer. It lowers the chance of overmixing a batter and brings a dense final bake.
9. Rolling pin
A marble rolling pin is cool to touch. This makes it perfect for rolling the pie crust or sugar cookie dough. Essentially, it helps to flatten out pies and pastries and everything else that needs compression.
If you are a beginner, the roller type is the easiest one to use. We recommend you get a good-quality rolling pin. You will probably stick by it even if you become a pro.
10. Chef’s knife
If you want only one but a versatile knife in your kitchen, get this one. It is an all-purpose knife that you can use for dicing, slicing, mincing, and chopping. To sum it up, any recipe you want, this knife is the one you need to get through it.
11. Pairing knife
This is one of the knives you should get if you are starting as a baker. It helps to peel and core foods like apples. Besides, it also helps to cut fruits and vegetables. Or you could complete the delicate work that you cant do with the chef’s knife.
12. Over mitts
You don’t want to ruin your manicure while prepping a cake for your dear spouse. Right?
Oven mitts help to handle safely hot but fresh-from-the-oven cocotte or loaves. Using the mitts, you can easily place the cake on a cake turntable. You could also buy heat-proof gloves to help you hold piping hot utensils.
