Home Baking

Safety first, yes? Carrying a fully loaded pasta pot to the colander in the sink is: a) potentially dangerous, b) hard on your back, and c) a pain. When you cook pasta with an insert all you need lift and carry is the pasta-filled insert. Easy peasy. Not to mention that the water can be used again for another batch or an additional ingredient. That’s what you call green cooking.

Yes, beans or rice will do the trick when you are lining pie and tart doughs for prebaking. But I vote for official baking weights, either ceramic, or in a handy chain of metal beads. Super heavy, they will hold the dough in place and prevent shrinking.

The proof was clear the first time you used a rubber spatula, possibly as long ago as your first batch of brownies, baked in your mother’s kitchen – rubber spatulas rule! Or they did, until silicone came along and dominated. No more melting. No more bits breaking off into the pudding. All shapes and sizes. Pretty colors optional, but irresistible.

For years and years I refused to use a timer, thinking timers were for wimps. What was I thinking? Now I let my reliable digital timer do the thinking while I do the cooking. A double timer is twice as nice. What more can I say?

While proofing baskets are not essential, they are certainly a lovely addition to any serious bread baker’s supply stash. Up your baking ante by proofing your loaves in a linen-lined basket. The linen liner holds a coating of flour nicely, and the dough will not stick to the linen, making removal a cinch. Baskets hold the dough in shape before baking, and the linen keeps the crust smooth.

Unlined baskets – as tricky as they can be to use – put a pretty impression on the dough. Aesthetic only. Of course, aesthetics are powerful.

In a word – indispensable. No true cook or baker can work without a stack of clean, absorbent towels by their side. Keep them dry and use as oven mitts. Use them damp to protect dough from drying out. Wet and wrung out, they clean up any mess. Nice white towels stay that way because they can be cleaned with bleach. Flour sack towels = a cook’s security blanket.

Boar bristle brushes are particularly nice because they carry plenty of liquid – eggwash, milk, water, glaze, whatever, and they are soft enough to not disturb the surface you are brushing. Boar bristles are flexible, and they will bend easily along the contours of fresh fruit or the crimped edges of a pie crust. Very nice to have in a variety of sizes and shapes – both round and flat.

Ten inches is a good starting place for off-set spatulas, although it is good to own some that are also longer and some that are smaller, all the way down to four inches or so. Use the long spatulas to create large swaths of smooth icing and to spread batters in large baking pans. Shorter spatulas are infinitely useful for a variety of odd jobs, including working on medium-sized cakes and tarts. Use small spatulas for fine-tuning and detail work.

Silicone baking liners may not be as convenient as parchment paper, but they do not fill up your trash bin, or ever need to be replaced. Virtually nothing will stick to the liner, which seems miraculous to me. They are pricy, or so it seems when you are buying them. However, after the first use, the cost seems minimal. An amazing, semi-recent innovation.