10 Tools to Take Your Baking Game to the Next Level
This article is part of the Basically Guide to Better Baking, a 10-week, 10-recipe series designed to help you become a cooler, smarter, more confident baker.
I've always considered myself a just-make-do kind of baker. If I wanted to make a loaf cake but didn’t have the requisite pan, I’d just make the recipe into muffins instead. My favorite cookies were most often a hodgepodge of sizes because I owned neither a cookie scoop nor a scale. And anything made in a 9x9" metal pan could surely be made in an 8x8" glass one, right?
But now that I’m home so much, my kitchen’s seeing more action than ever. Baking—like taking a relaxing walk in the park or spending a full day cooking beef noodle soup—makes me feel just a little better. And along with those extra hours spent creaming butter and sugar came the justification I needed to loosen my minimalist grip and build a baking toolkit.
These 10 tools have taken my baking game to the next level—helping me weigh flour, roll out dough, shape cookies, and complete the Basically Guide to Better Baking with some peace of mind. Below, I've outlined what each tool is good for and, if you do decide to invest, what recipe you'll want to make first.
All products featured on Basically are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn a small affiliate commission.
1/10Digital Scale
What it’s good for: For some ingredients—flours, especially—the most accurate (and neatest) way to measure is by using your scale. Otherwise, who knows how densely packed your “1 cup” will be? You’ll also end up spending a lot less time rinsing out pesky measuring cups. And if you do have a kitchen scale but the recipe you want to follow only gives volumes, here's how to convert.
Try it out: Shockingly Easy No-Knead Focaccia
Buy it: Escali Primo P115C Precision Kitchen Food Scale, $25 on Amazon
2/10Mini Offset Spatula
What it’s good for: Spreading and smearing! It’s the tool of choice to distribute sticky batter into a cake pan, dramatically frost cupcakes, or even spread peanut butter over toast. The bendy blade and wooden handle offer the ideal ratio of give to grip, which is especially helpful when smearing the glaze all over these sticky buns.
Try it out: Cinnamon-Date Sticky Buns
Buy it: Ateco 1305 Offset Spatula, $6 on Amazon
3/10Pastry brush
What it’s good for: Use it to delicately and quickly apply an even coating of egg wash (the stuff that gives pastries their color and shine), brush glaze over a flaky apple tart, or paint browned leeks with mustard. For this pecan-caramel shortbread, you'll use a pastry brush is used to coat the dough in dulce de leche—which acts as a sticking agent for the sprinkles. It does a much more effective job than your fingers (trust me on that).
Try it out: Roasty Toasty Pecan-Caramel Shortbread Cookies
Buy it: Carlisle 1.5-inch Wide Flat Brush, $11 on Amazon
4/10Plastic dough scraper
What it’s good for: A properly-employed scraper will become like an extension of your hand—turning your clumsy fingers into baking machines. They can be used for all manner of tasks: prying the stubborn bits of fresh pasta from your counter, transferring scallion confetti to your mixing bowl, and subdividing a big biscuit dough into neat portions.
Try it out: Sour Cream and Onion Biscuits
Buy it: Ateco 1303 Scraper, Set of 2, $6 on Amazon
5/10Loaf pan
What it’s good for: Maybe the better question is what isn’t it good for? You can make everything from lasagna to meatloaf to tea cake. Buying the right size and material, however, is important. You want a metal tin that’s big enough that your recipe won’t hulk out of it like an enormous muffin. This 9x5" pan won't let you down.
Try it out: Earl Grey Yogurt Cake
Buy it: Chicago Metallic 9-inch-by-5-inch Loaf Pan, $10 on Amazon
6/10Square baking pan
What it’s good for: Listen, we live in a free country where you’re welcome to make all the oblong brownies, blondies, and nutty bars you so desire. No judgies! But lots of recipes are specifically formulated to square pans—if you want to bake them in a pan of a different size, you’ll have to adjust the quantities and baking times accordingly. The 8x8" or 9x9" is an ideal vessel for coffee cakes, lemon bars, or this enormous Twix bar.
Try it out: Tahini Billionaire Bars
Buy it: USA Pan Square 8-inch Cake Pan, $15 on Amazon
7/10Cookie scoop
What it’s good for: Contrary to what the name suggests, a cookie scooper is useful in many scenarios: digging into a tub of ice cream, portioning out meatballs, and shaping those little melon balls for a psychedelic Pinterest punch. But if you’re worried your family is going to brawl over who gets the biggest buckwheat cookie, using the scoop is the surest way to make an equal-sized, perfectly-cooked batch.
Try it out: Salty Buckwheat Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Buy it: OXO Medium Cookie Scoop, $15 from Williams Sonoma
8/10Round cake pan
What’s it good for: A good cake pan will heat your batter evenly, help your cake rise, and prevent that awful burnt-crust-undercooked-middle situation. The high sides on this one will also prevent overflow if you go too heavy on the batter. You need one round tin for this carrot cake—but if you envision making a layer cake more than once a year, better to stock up on two.
Try it out: Cardamom-Pistachio Carrot Cake
Buy it: Fat Daddio's Round 9-Inch Cake Pan, $13 on Amazon
9/10Flexible rubber spatula
What it’s good for: Is it sacrilegious to claim that rubber spatulas are more versatile (and easier to clean) than wooden spoons? They're handy for scraping the last bit of scrambled eggs onto a plate or coaxing cookie dough from a mixing bowl, but you can also use them for frosting cakes, stirring caramelizing onions, or, like in this brownie recipe, vigorously beating cream cheese.
Try it out: Camouflage Chocolate Fudge Brownies
Buy it: GIR Premium Silicone Spatula, $13 at The Bon Appétit Market
Photo by Chelsie Craig10/10Rolling pin
What it’s good for: Sure, you can improvise a rolling pin with an olive oil bottle, a long-empty shiraz, or even a (full-fat) can of coconut milk. But those can't offer precision or consistency. To coax pasta dough into thin sheets or to turn shaggy crumbs into a cohesive dough, only a fancy stick will give you the weight and control you're after..
Try it out: Triple Threat Onion Galette
Buy it: J.K. Adams Maple French Rolling Pin, $25 on Amazon
