Home baking is a lovely and fulfilling activity, but the quantity of equipment required to outfit even a tiny home bakery can be overwhelming. A beginning baker could be intimidated by the list of culinary items. In this blog, we’ve selected seven essential baking tools that can be used for multiple purposes and can save every baker from the chaos of handling various tools.
1. Spatula
Spatulas are extremely useful instruments. Stirring, mixing, spreading, and scraping are all easy with these. You use your rubber scraper more frequently than you realise. This tool is great for scraping the final bit of batter or dough from a pan, as well as scraping all the nooks and crannies out of a jam jar. They're also great for mixing wet and dry ingredients together. Silicone scrapers are more heat resistant than rubber scrapers, while offset spatulas have a narrow metal blade and a wooden grip which work great for non-heat environments.
A good old spatula with a thin metal blade can be handy, and it'll be flexible enough to glide beneath whatever you're moving without squishing or crumbling the dough.
2. Whisk
A whisk is a small instrument with interlocking wire or plastic loops on one end and a handle on the other. This equipment, sometimes known as a balloon whisk, is used to whip air into liquid substances to make them fluffy or frothy. It's one of the greatest techniques to completely combine dry ingredients. You can also beat an egg with a whisk if you want to. When beating six eggs, however, only a wire whisk will suffice. Start with one that is 10 to 11 inches in length, which is a great all-around size.
3. Sheet pan
Because of their versatility and utility, sheet pans are vital for baking. You'll be using them frequently so it's worth investing in a few high-quality ones. These flat pans with raised sides are perfect for baking cookies, scones, pastries, croissants, as well as roasting vegetables, fish, and meat. Although sheet pans are commonly referred to as cookie sheets, a genuine cookie sheet only has a rolled edge on one side for handling, and the rest of the sides are open for easy cookie transfer to a cooling rack. The typical baking sheet, or sheet pan, would most likely not make the cut if this was a list of unusual baking implements.
4. Brush
Pastry brushes can be used for tasks such as brushing the outside of a loaf with water, dusting the tops of pastries and pie crusts with an egg wash or milk, and greasing baking pans with melted butter or shortening.
5. Rolling pin
Rolling pins are very handy for rolling out pie crusts, cookie dough, and puff pastry, but they can also be used in various ways in the kitchen. If you don't have a food processor and need to crush cookies, chips, or crackers for a recipe, simply place them in a sealable bag and smash them with your rolling pin. They are perfect for pastry, biscuits, and cookie dough since they are colder. Everything from pie and pastry crust to cookie dough and biscuits may be flattened and shaped with a rolling pin. A wooden one would work just fine. Rubber and steel are a lot more easy to clean.
6. Pie dish
The most obvious purpose for a pie dish is baking homemade pies, but it can also be used for other sweets. You can cook savoury pies like meatball pie and taco pie, as well as frozen icebox pies. They're also great for dredging and breading meats in shallow dishes. Pie pans made of ceramic or glass heat slowly and evenly and are ideal for the long baking times required to make a superb pie. To begin, all you'll probably need is a 9-inch glass pie dish.
7. Stand mixer
This is the most expensive item on the list, but it's highly beneficial for quickly creating even mixtures with little effort. It's impossible to go back once you've used a stand mixer. Mixers come with a variety of attachments, such as a paddle, whip, and dough hook, that makes tasks such as beating eggs, mixing batter, kneading dough, and creaming butter simple.
So which multi purpose item are you going to try out next?