The BA Test Kitchen’s Gear of the Year
It’s no secret that our Test Kitchen editors have very strong opinions (don’t come near Carla with tea that isn’t PG Tips), no more so than when it comes to kitchen accessories, tools, appliances, and pantry staples. Which tracks—when you spend your days chopping, whisking, frosting, and basting, you’re bound to have a favorite tool for every job. We’ve compiled their favorite gear of 2019 so that you can greet the new decade with the confidence of a pro.
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1/21The Salad Spinner
Unless you like, in the words of Molly Baz, a “squishy, damp, unseasoned eating experience,” you need a salad spinner. Not only does the ZYLISS Easy Spin Salad Spinner dry your kale and Bibb lettuce in a flash, it’s also legitimately fun to use. Yank the cord like you’re starting a chainsaw, and you’re on your way to gritless greens and ripped biceps.
Photo by Chelsie Craig2/21The Sponge
If there’s anyone who knows how to keep a kitchen clean, tidy, and organized, it’s BA Test Kitchen manager Gaby Melian. Her favorite sponge should be your favorite sponge, and the Skura Sponge is it. It's strong but gentle and contains an antimicrobial agent that inhibits the growth of mildew and bacteria, which means it stays fresh long after a normal sponge starts smelling like sour basement.
Photo by Chelsie Craig3/21The Cooking Spoon
Is there anything the Kunz spoon can’t do? Perfect for basting, serving, flipping, and drizzling, this is the One Spoon To Rule Them All. Carla Lalli Music calls it “the world’s greatest kitchen spoon.” Anna Stockwell keeps one within arm’s reach at all times. Chris Morocco says any spoon that isn’t a Kunz spoon can’t sit with him.
Photo by Chelsie Craig4/21The Scale
Digital scales—not just for serious bakers! Sure, it’ll bring increased precision to your cakes and breads, but Chris Morocco reaches for his Escali Primo Digital Scale on the reg. Portion out pasta! Monitor the coffee-to-hot water ratio in your pour over! Find out if your hamster has put on weight! At under $25, it’s a kitchen essential.
Photo by Chelsie Craig5/21The Kitchen Timer
When you’ve got a batch of cookies in the oven, eggs boiling on the stove, and hands covered in raw chicken, the timer on your smartphone simply won’t cut it. The CDN TM8 Timer, meanwhile, can track multiple things at once, is moisture-resistant, and comes with both a clip for wearing and a magnet for mounting. Anna Stockwell loves the memory function—handy when you’re baking batch after batch of something—and how it counts up from zero once the alarm goes off, keeping track of your overall bake time.
Photo by Chelsie Craig6/21The Cooling Rack
As the saying goes, the higher the rack of cookies, the closer to God. Raise your baking game to divine heights with these tiered Nordic Ware Stackable Cooling Racks. They snap together so you can cool twice the amount of cookies in the same amount of space. Sarah Jampel discovered them while creeping on a stranger’s wedding registry, and they’ve revolutionized how she bakes in her tiny kitchen.
But it: Nordic Ware Stackable Nonstick Cooling Rack Set, $27 on Amazon
Photo by Chelsie Craig7/21The Measuring Cups
Perhaps you’ve been cooking away, blithely thinking that your Pyrex liquid measuring cup is perfectly adequate. “Wake up!” screams Chris Morocco. Have some self-respect and make the switch to OXO Good Grip’s Squeeze and Pour Silicone Measuring Cups. Chris raves that they’re heatproof and squeezable, which makes for precise pouring. This set comes with a two-cup, a one-cup, and a half-cup vessel that, since they’re handle-free, all nest inside one another like functional Matryoshka dolls.
Buy it: OXO Good Grips 3 Piece Silicone Measuring Cup Set, $20 on Amazon
Photo by Chelsie Craig8/21The Silicone Mat
If you’ve ever labored over a baking sheet, scraping and scrubbing and scouring off stuck-on miscellaneous gunk, you need a silicone baking mat. Sarah Jampel gushes that her OXO Good Grips Silicone Baking Mat is as slick and smooth and un-stick-on-able as “the skin of a dolphin that just emerged from the water.” Have you ever seen a dolphin with a barnacle?
Photo by Chelsie Craig9/21The Mini Food Processor
So cute! So wee! Anna Stockwell keeps hers on the counter, and Molly Baz cradles hers in her arms like a baby. In addition to being adorably smol, the Cuisinart Mini-Prep Plus Food Processor will change the way you cook—even if you already have a normal-sized food processor. With a three-cup capacity and a small footprint, it’s perfect for whipping up mayonnaise, elevating weeknight salmon with a salsa verde, or blitzing together a dip-based dinner.
Buy it: Cuisinart Mini-Prep Plus Food Processor, $29 on Amazon
Photo by Chelsie Craig10/21The Gloves
If you’re the type of person who loves both thinly sliced vegetables and avoiding visits to the emergency room, you need these NoCry Cut Resistant Gloves. Anna Stockwell sports one every time she uses her mandoline, but they’re also lightweight and comfortable enough for wearing while chopping, grating, shucking, and peeling. Make like Natalie Portman and pair yours with a frilly puff-shoulder blouse for a look that says, “I care about fashion and safety.”
Photo by Chelsie Craig11/21The Scissors
A lot of the products the Test Kitchen swears by have cult followings, but Joyce Chen’s Unlimited Scissors are perhaps the cultiest of them all. They’re ubiquitous, present at every food editor’s station. Sarah Jampel employs them to cut dried fruit into tiny morsels. Andy Baraghani says snipping the perfect basil leaf off a stem with them makes him feel like a surgeon. Anna Stockwell’s mom uses them to cut small branches for floral arrangements. All hail Joyce Chen!
Photo by Chelsie Craig12/21The Brush
Nothing says unappetizing like a boar hair bristle lacquered to a pie crust. If your pastry brush is shedding, throw it away and replace it with the Carlisle Sparta 1-inch Wide Flat Pastry Brush. Sarah Jampel uses hers to egg wash pastry, scoot excess flour off dough, soak cake layers with syrups, and grease many-nooked Bundt pans. It’s a brush with greatness. (Ha.)
Buy it: Carlisle Sparta 1-inch Wide Flat Pastry Brush, $8 on Amazon
Photo by Alex Lau13/21The Rice Cooker
Sorry, Instant Pots, dehydrators, and ice cream machines—the rice cooker is the unofficial appliance of the Test Kitchen. As soon as Chris Morocco comes into the office, he gets a batch of rice or grains going in the Zojirushi NS-TSC10 so that, come hangry o’clock, lunch is essentially ready. While there are many models and sizes at wildly different price points, this version, which holds five and a half cups of dried grains, will get most jobs done without breaking the bank.
Buy it: Zojirushi NS-TSC10 5.5-Cup Rice Cooker, $150 on Amazon
Photo by Chelsie Craig14/21The Prep Bowls
There’s a time for fine china, and there’s a time for workhorse prep bowls that get the job done. These tiny, just-shy-of-3-inches-in-diameter Stainless Steel Katori are those bowls. They were staples on Priya Krishna’s family dinner table, holding dal and yogurt, but she’s since expanded their repertoire. She recommends using them as a salt crock, a vessel for salad dressing, or the perfect bowl for a single scoop of ice cream.
Photo by Laura Murray15/21The Food Coloring
If your rainbow-hued frosting or baked goods call for Red No. 40 or Brilliant Blue FCF, Rick Martinez would like a word. Synthetic dyes can dry out your dough; plus what even are they? Rick opts instead for Suncore Foods’ line of Supercolor Powders, available in an array of gorgeous colors. They’re all made from actual food (ingredients in the Amethyst Açaí Berry Powder: 100 percent Organic Açai Berry Powder), and they hold their color, even when baked.
Buy it: Suncore Foods Supercolor Powders, from $10 on Amazon
Photo by Alex Lau16/21The Secret Seasoning
The packaging of Bragg Nutritional Yeast Seasoning is reminiscent of an old-timey medicinal tonic, covered in promises, fonts, and Bible verses. Brought to you by “health crusaders,” it “adds delicious flavor to foods,” and if you need inspiration, you can send away for a book of “700 Vegetarian Health Recipes for only $16.95.” Whatever Bragg is selling, Carla Lalli Music is buying. She shakes the cheesy, umami-rich flakes with abandon on everything from popcorn to sauteed greens to buttered rice, and you should too.
17/21The Spatula
If you’ve been using a butter knife to frost your cakes or release your muffins from their tins, the four-and-a-half inch Ateco Offset Spatula will rock your world. This five dollar upgrade makes your frosting swirls swirlier and your hummus swoops swoopier, but it also comes in handy when you need to flip petite slices of pan-fried tofu or transfer small cookies from a baking sheet to a cooling rack. Sarah Jampel has one that is engraved with her name because she is an absolute boss, but the unadorned version works just as well.
Photo by Laura Murray18/21The Cookie and Cake Carrier
If you’ve spent hours meticulously piping royal icing and tweezering dragées in order to win your holiday cookie swap, you best make sure your masterpieces arrive intact. Rick Martinez totes his baked goods in the Baker’s Sto N Go Food Storage Container. It’s like a plastic suitcase for your cookies, with three adjustable shelves that you can slide in and out like racks in an oven. You’ll never arrive with smudged cakes or broken cookies again.
Buy it: Baker’s Sto N Go Food Storage Container, $37 on Amazon
Photo by Chelsie Craig19/21The Grill’s Best Friend
We’ve all been that guy holding our smartphone over a grill, vainly trying to see if our steaks are done in the weak beam of the flashlight. You need a headlamp, says Carla Lalli Music. The Black Diamond Cosmo is a classic, and if you’re worried about looking uncool, remember that raw chicken isn’t cool either.
Photo by Laura Murray20/21The Skin Cream
Is Egyptian Magic truly “The Ancient Egyptians’ Secret, All Natural Cream?” Does it matter? This buttery balm—made with olive oil, beeswax, honey, bee pollen, propolis, and royal jelly—is what gets Carla Lalli Music through the winter. She slathers it on chafed, cracked hands, uses it to soothe tissue-abraised sniffly noses, and works it into the dry ends of her hair for serious moisture that might as well be magic.
Buy it: Egyptian Magic All Purpose Skin Cream, $22 on Amazon
Photo by Laura Murray21/21The Travel Friendly Coffee Maker
While there are many joys to staying in a hotel—plush robes, a wake-up call from a human, those tiny sewing kits—hotel room coffee isn’t one of them. Chris Morocco never travels without his on-the-go coffee kit, which includes beans, a hand grinder, and AeroPress. This lightweight, durable coffee press is perfect for vacation, but it makes coffee so smooth and bitterness-free that it might become your favorite brewing method at home as well.
