We independently evaluate all of our recommendations. If you click on links we provide, we may receive compensation.

The Best Bread-Making Tools, According to Our Experts and Tests

The basic tools any home baker should arm themselves with before getting started.

By
The Serious Eats Team
The Serious Eats Team
At Serious Eats, we’re a team of self-proclaimed food nerds who are ever-curious about the “why” behind cooking. The staff has worked in restaurants, test kitchens, bakeries, and other notable publications, bringing extensive culinary and editorial expertise to the table.
Learn about Serious Eats' Editorial Process
Updated October 29, 2024
Bread loaf on cutting board with a bread knife beside it and several slices cut

Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

Editor's Note

This article was written by multiple contributors. Max Bernstein wrote the general bread-baking recommendations, while Tim Chin authored the sourdough-specific tips.

Bread-baking is one of the oldest culinary traditions on the planet, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a culture that doesn't make one sort of bread or another. But just because our ancestors made do with elbow grease and crude tools doesn't mean we need to follow suit.

A handful of tried-and-true essentials can make the bread-baking process far easier and more reliable. Whether you're a newbie to our Simple Crusty White Bread recipe and Breadmaking 101 series or an experienced baker looking for trustworthy recommendations with which to upgrade your basic equipment, here's what you should plan to have on hand. As an added bonus, any of these tools also make for great gifts for bakers.

We've also added specific recommendations for those looking to make sourdough. Sourdough is a very specialized area of bread baking that involves many of the same tools for general bread baking. The difference? Sourdough breads rely on a starter–a culture of microbes used to leaven bread. While making a starter doesn’t involve too much extra equipment, there are some certain pieces of equipment that will assist you in making and maintaining one.

The Best Bread-Making Tools

For General Bread-Baking

A Digital Scale

An accurate kitchen scale is an important first step toward baking with confidence. This eliminates all of the questions about whether to sift or pack our flour, whether to measure out a heaping tablespoon or a packed one, or how to estimate a pinch versus a smidge. At Serious Eats, we're partial to the winner of our digital-scale review: the OXO Good Grips Stainless Steel Food Scale With Pull-Out Display, which lets you check measurements easily, even when the scale's topped with a big fat bowl. It scales up to five kilograms (much more bread than you can bake at once in any home oven), and it's accurate to the gram. Scales will help keep you consistent, which, in turn, will help you to refine your technique and recipes to make what you want, when you want it.

A glass bowl with flour on it set on a kitchen scale that has a pull-out screen.

Serious Eats / Ashlee Redger

A Bowl and Bench Scraper

A bowl scraper will be your best friend when transferring dough between bowls and also help you mix dough by hand. Meanwhile, a bench scraper is essential when dividing and shaping loaves, and will make clean-up much easier. (For those unprepared, you'll get flour everywhere during the baking process if you do it right. This is part of the fun. Wear some shoes you don't care about, and save your black clothes for a different time.) To clean off the sticky bits of dough in the bowl, a Teiger dough cloth is a must-have.

Bowl scraper and dough

Serious Eats / Tim Chin

Proofing Materials

SFBI Linen Couche

SFBI Linen Couche
PHOTO: San Francisco Baking Institute
$10 at Myshopify.com

Once your loaves are shaped, it's time for the proofing and fermentation process. We like to proof bread dough in baskets lined with undyed cloth—aptly called proofing baskets. They help the loaves keep their structure and shape during the final proof. If you have bread-proofing baskets already, use them; if they're well seasoned, you won't even need the cloth.

In place of baskets, you can use medium mixing bowls lined with undyed, unbleached linen and sprinkled with flour. That said, the porosity of the wicker basket is ideal, since it will keep our loaves from sweating, which in turn prevents sticking. The cloth is yet more insurance against sticking, and the dusting of flour on that cloth is our tertiary insurance.

Why undyed cloth specifically? Any chemicals used to treat the cloth will seep into the dough during proofing, which means you'll be eating them later. This undoes one of the best reasons to bake at home—to know what's in our food.

two proofing baskets with shaped bread dough in them on the left, a hand shaping bread dough into a round on the right

Serious Eats / Jesse Raub

A Large Heatproof Bread Pan

To bake your bread, you'll also need a Dutch oven of some kind. Taking the excellent advice of Tartine Bread author Chef Chad Robertson, we like the slightly unorthodox Lodge Combo Cooker to bake bread at home. Not only does it cost under $40, but its dimensions are perfect for making classic hearth-style bread.

If you're using a more traditional, deep cast iron set, just try not to burn yourself on the edges when removing the bread, and don't use anything that's enameled unless it specifies high-temperature resistance—most enamels aren't designed to endure such high temperatures for so long (that means none of our recommended Dutch ovens are ideal for this task, folks!).

For committed bakers, the Challenger Bread Pan or Fourneau may be of interest. They're made from heavy cast iron just like the Lodge combo cooker, but designed specifically for bread baking. And their shape can accommodate a wider range of loaf shapes and sizes. We also thought highly of the Pit Boss Cast Iron Roaster. We've reviewed the snazzy Le Creuset bread oven as well, and while it performed fine, we don't think it's better than less expensive, more versatile options.

A round bread loaf in a parchment paper sling sitting in the shallow base of a cast iron combo cooker

Serious Eats / Andrew Janjigian

Baking Stones or a Baking Steel

For basic country-style white bread, baking steels or stones aren't strictly essential, but they can measurably improve the performance of your oven by adding thermal mass. Home ovens lose a lot of heat when they're opened, which is bad for bread because we need that heat to get the full rise out of our loaves. Any extra stuff you can shove in your oven to help it stay hot will make for better bread.

The Baking Steel has long been Serious Eats' favorite, thanks to its hardy construction (no more broken pizza stones, thank you very much) and impressive heat retention. However, a cheaper, lighter-weight baking stone will also serve most home bakers (and pizza makers) well.

hands putting a The Original Baking Steel in the oven

Food & Wine / Will Dickey

An Oven Thermometer

While we're on the topic of ovens, ensuring that yours is hot enough to begin with is a good idea. Many ovens are incorrectly calibrated, meaning that what you see on the dial may not be the temperature your oven's reaching inside. A good, basic oven thermometer is cheap; having an accurate oven is priceless. You can read more about how to calibrate your oven in our post on common variables that affect baking.

An oven thermometer on the rack of an oven.

Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

A Stand Mixer

When making dough, we almost always start with a stand mixer and a dough hook. Not only does it guarantee consistent results, it's a lot easier than using your hands. That said, a stand mixer isn't strictly necessary; the biggest mixing bowl in your house will also do in a pinch. You can read more about how to mix and knead bread dough here.

A pastel green bowl-lift KitchenAid stand mixer.

Serious Eats / Riddley Gemperlein-Schirm

A Danish Dough Whisk

If you're mixing your dough by hand, then a Danish dough whisk is essential. This loopy tool is a mashup of a balloon whisk and a wooden spoon without any of their respective downfalls. (Balloon whisks get covered in gloop and are hard to clean if your dough is wet, while wooden spoons don't agitate dough particularly well.) What's more, the taut loop of the dough whisk can be used to cut into stiffer doughs, while its wide outline can easily separate the sticky dough from your bowl, greatly reducing the chance of pesky flour pockets.

A Danish dough whisk incorporating flour and wet ingredients

Serious Eats / Andrew Janjigian

A Spray Bottle

Grab yourself a spray bottle of virtually any size, and fill it with water. Professional bakery ovens release steam, which has a twofold effect: It keeps the crust from forming too early in the process, and it ensures that the crust that forms later on is as crisp and burnished as can be. You can read all about the hows and whys in our post on the science of baking bread; for now, just know that a spray bottle will work wonders on your crust.

A Utility Knife or Lame

Finally, you'll want to have some sort of razor to score the bread. You can use a proper baker's lame, a box cutter with a fresh blade, an X-acto knife, or a razor blade; even a sharp paring knife will do. If we haven't already convinced you that every kitchen needs an X-acto knife, now's the time to take our words to heart.

A loaf of bread dough rests on a cutting board next to a bread lame and the bottom of a cast iron pan.

Serious Eats / Jesse Raub

A Bread Knife

So this one isn't really necessary for baking bread, but after all your hard work, you deserve beautiful, even, easily attained slices of your loaf. After extensive testing, we found some great bread knives that slice so smoothly they'll have you wondering why you've been battling crusts all these years with the dull knife you inherited from Grandma.

A person using a bread knife to slice a boule

Serious Eats / Ashlee Redger

A Breadbox for Proper Bread Storage

After your precious loaf is baked and you've munched a slab slathered in butter, you'll want a place to store the rest, since stale bread is sad. A bread box can help keep bread tender and also secure it from any hungry pets. (We've had our canine companions steal bread from the countertop on multiple occasions). Not to mention our winner from Williams Sonoma just looks so lovely, much better than a loaf wrapped in plastic wrap.

A Loaf Pan for Picture-Perfect Sandwich Slices

While a boule has a rustic, homey vibe, when you're baking bread for sandwiches, a loaf pan provides that picture-perfect square shape. In our tests, we loved the options from Williams Sonoma and Nordic Ware, which resulted in perfectly browned crusts and easily turned-out loaves.

For Making/Maintaining a Sourdough Starter

Containers

Sterilized glass jars are the gold standard for many bakers. Weck jars, Ball jars, or any mason jars with lids are good options. Plastic works too—I maintained my starter in reusable restaurant deli quart containers for years before switching to glass, though we've also reviewed a sourdough home and a sourdough fridge which keep your starter at the perfect temperature.

a jar of sourdough starter inside of the sourdough home

Serious Eats / Andrew Janjigian

A Spatula

A sterile, small, flexible silicone or rubber spatula is ideal for scraping the sides of your jar and fully incorporating ingredients. We like the GIR spatula for a variety of tasks and it comes in a range of sizes (standard to teeny-tiny).

a side-angle view of seven silicone spatulas on a marble surface

Serious Eats / Amanda Suarez

Accurate Thermometers

Maintaining your starter at a consistent temperature range will go a long way toward its development over time. So, it’s prudent to keep a thermometer handy. You could use a digital thermometer to measure the temperature of your starter directly—our favorite is the ThermoWorks Thermapen ONE (read our full review to learn more). Or at the very least, it’s helpful to keep an accurate digital indoor thermometer to keep track of ambient temperature.

Thermapen ONE on a marble background

Serious Eats / Irvin Lin

A Temperature-Controlled Environment for Proofing

If you really want to go the extra mile (and don’t want to leave anything to chance), investing in a temperature-controlled proofing box is a good idea. You can store your starters in this box without worrying about massive fluctuations in ambient temperature. Plus, you can use this box to proof bread (of course). If you don’t want to invest in a proofing box—but still aspire to some form of temperature control—you can opt for the more DIY approach. There are plenty of tutorials online for temperature-controlled boxes: All you need is a beer cooler, an electric blanket or similar heat source, and a PID temperature controller. As long as you know your way around some hardware, it’s a cheaper alternative to a proofing box. You could also buy an easier-to-store proofing mat, like this one from Challenger.

a heating mat with a sourdough starter on top and a thermocouple taking the temperature

Serious Eats / Jesse Raub

Cheesecloth or Coffee Filters

The jury is out on porous materials. Some bakers claim that fastening a piece of cheesecloth or a coffee filter to the top of the jar (instead of lightly screwing on a lid) allows the starter to “breathe” and enhances the probability of inoculation in the initial stages of starter development. We'd guess that exposure to more air means increased exposure to potential microbes (but that’s best left for another post.) Anecdotally, we've had good results making starters without using these methods too. But it can’t hurt.

Rubber Bands

Beyond fastening the cheesecloth to your jar, rubber bands provide a helpful visual aid to gauge the development of your starter as it matures. To do this, simply fasten a band to the jar directly after feeding, making sure to level off the starter mixture to determine its starting level. At your next feed, you can measure how much the starter has risen relative to the starting point indicated by the band. This method has a low footprint, and I’ve found it more reliable and cleaner than using a marker to indicate the starting level.

sourdough starter in a jar being warmed by a heating mat

Serious Eats / Jesse Raub

FAQs

What's the best pot to bake bread in?

You can certainly bake bread in a Dutch oven if you have one. If you're looking to invest in a dedicated bread oven, we tested three cast iron models (and recommend all of them).

Do you need special tools to make baguettes?

Yes, you'll want some specialized tools to make baguettes (like a couche, transfer peel, and bread lame). We rounded up all of the gear you need here.

Why We're The Experts

  • Tim Chin is a professional cook who previously worked at America's Test Kitchen. He's written many recipes, explainers, and equipment reviews for Serious Eats—including woks and sauciers.
  • He has written extensively about sourdough for Serious Eats, including a recipe for a sourdough loaf, a guide on sourdough fermentation, and a sourdough starter recipe.
  • Max Bernstein is a baker, cook, and educator who studied bread baking at the French Culinary Institute in New York.
  • He previously wrote a bread-making guide on kneading as well as a recipe for a simple crusty white bread for Serious Eats.
  • We've tested tons of bread and bread-adjacent gear, so we know what we're talking about.

More Serious Eats Recipes