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The Essential Baking Tools You Should Have at Home, According to a Pastry Chef

From nonreactive cake pans to the best ice cream machine, Stella Parks has the answers.

By
Stella Parks
Stella Parks
Stella Parks
Editor Emeritus
Stella Parks is a CIA-trained baking nerd and pastry wizard, dubbed one of America's Best New Pastry Chefs by Food & Wine. She was the pastry editor at Serious Eats from 2016 to 2019.
Learn about Serious Eats' Editorial Process
Updated May 13, 2024
sifting flour into a bowl

Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

With every recipe I share on Serious Eats, I always mention the specific equipment I use at home. Over time, I've found myself listing the same pieces over and over again, so it seemed time to gather up those recommendations in one place—all the baking equipment you need to turn out pastry like a pro.

Of course, it would be impossible to write a guide that could cover every piece of equipment in the realm of pastry, so, as the author of a book called Iconic American Desserts, I'm limiting myself to the tools I use most, leaving out more obscure items that will sit around gathering dust.

This isn't an exhaustive guide, but it covers the basics, as well as more specialized tools that can help intermediate bakers step up their game. Whether you're making layer cakes, cookies, pies, ice cream, candy, or a simple dish of custard, these are the essential tools you'll need to get the job done. Any of them can also make a perfect gift for the baker in your life.

The following list has been adapted from my book, BraveTart: Iconic American Desserts.

A basic two-piece aluminum tube pan is perfect for large chiffon cakes and pound cakes, but it's absolutely essential for angel food cake, which will collapse in a nonstick pan. The two-piece construction allows the sticky angel food to be removed from the pan with ease and comes in handy for removing crumb-topped coffee cakes as well.

Using an offset spatula to loosen a baked angel food cake from an angel food cake pan

Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

For quick, even baking and the perfect crust on treats from brownies to hot cross buns, what you want is a nine-by-13-inch anodized aluminum baking pan. Anodization ensures the metal is nonreactive, which keeps recipes such as lemon bars and lasagna from taking on a wonky metallic flavor.

This Fat Daddio's anodized aluminum brownie/cheesecake pan goes the extra mile with a removable bottom, making it easy to extract fragile desserts for slicing into bars. (Read more about the benefits of this brownie pan here.)

Close-up of iced hot cross buns in a brownie pan

Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

A good bundt pan can transform any cake, however simple, into a work of art. Whether it's a family heirloom, something scavenged up at a yard sale or a chic little number like Nordic Ware's bundt pan, it's worth owning at least one dramatic pan to make simple cakes shine, whether our fluffy Gingerbread or rustic Olive Oil Cake.

To learn more about prepping the pan, scaling batter, and budging bake times, please see our info on how to use a bundt pan.

bundt cake with powdered sugar

Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

Aside from its many savory uses, a 10-inch cast iron skillet is ideal for roasting fruit on the grill, baking up a batch of buttermilk biscuits, or even making an easy, fudgy chocolate cake or pineapple- and banana-infused hummingbird cake. (You can find plenty more cast iron skillet desserts in our roundup on that theme.)

If you're new to cast iron, be sure to read our article on how to season a cast iron pan, as well as how to clean and maintain cast iron cookware.

chocolate skillet cake

Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

I absolutely hate springform pans, from the fiddly nooks and crannies that make cleaning a chore, to the propensity of their latches to pop open at the most inopportune times. Even worse? They're never deep enough for my liking, with a height that generally tops out somewhere shy of three inches. The perfect pan remained elusive until the folks at LloydPans Kitchenware designed a custom pan to my exact specifications, making it a whopping four inches deep, with a two-piece loose bottom design with no moving parts to clean (or fail).

It's the secret to the dramatic height of my classic New York-style cheesecake and no-bake Greek yogurt cheesecake, and I use it to make an impressive icebox torte as well. For more info, please see our full write-up on this amazing, custom cheesecake pan.

a New York style cheesecake on a pedestal, topped with blueberries

Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

Dark, shallow cake pans produce cakes that aren't as fluffy as they could be, with a thick crust and pronounced dome—none of which are things you want.

Instead, look for extra-deep pans made from reflective anodized aluminum. The additional depth helps cakes rise taller and fluffier, while reflective metal ensures their crust stays delicate and light and their tops nice and flat. Plus, deep cake pans can do double duty for messy, bubbly projects, like sticky buns—hence my obsession with these Fat Daddio's eight-by-three-inch round cake pans.

As with a brownie pan, anodized metal prevents unwanted reactions with acidic batters, such as my blackberry cake, ensuring that baked goods taste and look like they should. Whether it's a recipe on Serious Eats or in my cookbook, all my cakes are based on eight-inch pans, because I love the tall, thick layers they make.

For more information, check out our in-depth cake pan review.

Cake layers cooling in three extra-deep cake pans on a wire rack

Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

If you make layer cakes more than once or twice a year, a cast iron turntable is nothing short of revolutionary (pun intended, sorry).

The smooth spinning motion of a cast iron turntable helps creamy icings, like my silky Swiss buttercream or the marshmallow frosting in my book, glide evenly over a cake. When not in use for dessert, it can double as a lazy Susan for meals that require lots of condiments on the kitchen table.

2:26

How to Layer and Crumb-Coat a Cake

A set of nested round cookie cutters will see you through 99% of common baking projects, but having a fluted set as well can help you add some flair to basic cookie cutouts.

It's also fun to have plunger cutters that can cut and stamp cookies into varied shapes with patterned textures. You'd be amazed at the variety of options available online, so find a set that reflects your style!

A spring-loaded scoop will make short work of portioning old-fashioned chocolate chip cookie dough, blueberry muffin batter, or drop biscuits for blackberry cobbler. For most projects, a two-tablespoon scoop is ideal, but I keep a one-tablespoon model on hand, like this Norpro one-tablespoon scoop, for mini muffins and cookies as well.

Six portion scoops on a marble countertop

Serious Eats / Eric King

Switching from cups to a digital scale is the fastest way for any baker to level up in the kitchen. My favorite is this OXO stainless steel scale; it toggles between ounces and grams, and it has a pull-out display so the readout is never obscured by large bowls or cutting boards. It can handle up to 11 pounds, so it's a great choice for scaling directly into heavy glass or ceramic bowls, which will easily max out a lower-capacity scale.

While I find it faster and easier to measure spices and leavening with teaspoons, if you prefer to go with grams for these lightweight ingredients, you'll also need to invest in a micro-scale, which is capable of accurately weighing such small quantities.

A liquid measuring cup of dark liquid on a digital scale

Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

With features such as "shattering glass" and "mercury poisoning," old-fashioned candy thermometers don't have much to offer, and besides, their markings can fade with use or fog with steam. A digital thermometer is a much more reliable choice, but it matters which type you use!

Many of the most popular brands are designed to spot-check slabs of meat or pots of oil, but fall short when monitoring long-term stovetop projects, like toffee or fudge—popping a pocket thermometer in and out of the candy doesn't allow for the constant, steady readings required for good results. Pastry projects are better done using a digital thermometer with a clip-on attachment, so you can monitor every second of the candy-making process, which can go from success to failure in a split second (most instant-read pocket thermometers require three or four seconds to register).

My favorite is Polder's In-Oven Thermometer, which has a temperature alert function so I don't have to watch the readout like a hawk. I love that it has a timer as well. (Editor's note: Our overall favorite leave-in probe thermometer, after testing, is the ThermoWorks ChefAlarm.)

Even if you don't make candies often, this thermometer has a heat-resistant cord, so it's great for keeping tabs on long-term savory projects as well, like a roast turkey. (Worth noting: This thermometer is not meant for use on the grill. We recommend a few thermometers for this purpose in our roundup of the best grilling accessories and the best high-tech gear for grilling.)

a probe thermometer being used to take the temperature of a bowl of ice

Serious Eats / Will Dickey

A Docking Tool

Fox Run Dough Docker

Fox Run Dough Docker
PHOTO: Amazon
View on Amazon

Sure, you can squeak by poking a rolled dough over and over with a fork, but a proper docking tool will get the job done in a few seconds flat, leaving a crisp pattern of well-formed dots in its wake (this looks particularly nice in copycat recipes such as the homemade graham crackers in my book, or the Carr's-style whole wheat crackers here on Serious Eats).

Docking cracker dough

Serious Eats / Vicky Waisk

This tool may not seem like a baking essential, but between batches of Sunday morning English muffins and fluffy pancakes (not to mention French toast), mine sure sees a lot of use.

Sasha's done an in-depth review of the best electric griddles, and my favorite among them is Presto's 22-Inch Electric Griddle. Its slim design and removable legs allow for easy storage with my baking sheets, and it's a great way to cook all kinds of breakfast items in bulk.

pancakes on the griddle

Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

A fluted pastry wheel is as useful for making classic ravioli as it is for making lattice-topped pies. There are lots of options on the market, and many cheaper than my own personal favorite, but it’s worth noting that not all are created equal. Look for those with a wide metal wheel and exaggerated “zig-zag” design, as those made from whisper-thin sheets of just-wavy metal will leave patterns that disappear as soon as your dough puffs.

An unbaked lattice pie sitting on a marble countertop

Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

A food processor is essential for recipes such as my magic bagels and homemade Wheat Thins, but it also makes short work of custom flours, like the freeze-dried fruit and cake flour blend in my double strawberry cake, as well as the honey-roasted-peanut flour for the peanut butter cookies in my book and the apple flour in my homemade Oatmeal Creme Pies. (For more ideas, check out the list I wrote up of some of my favorite food processor dessert recipes.)

If you're looking for an investment piece that can withstand heavy use and abuse (particularly in the realm of bread), I own and love a Breville Sous Chef, the 16- and 12-cup versions of which made the list of top picks from our food processor review. For its innovative dough blade shape and remarkably efficient processing, our top recommendation, at a similar price point, is the Magimix 14-cup processor from Robot Coupe.

For those in need of something reliable to handle casual use—like making the occasional batch of fruity, super-stable whipped cream or homemade digestive biscuits—I've been very happy with my Cuisinart 14-Cup Food Processor, which also made it onto our list of recommended models.

Three food processors against a blue tile background

Serious Eats / Russell Kilgore

Whether you're making a rhubarb crisp or tiramisu, a two-quart baking dish (usually measuring seven by 11 inches or else eight by 10 inches) is the perfect size for most baking projects. It can be great to have a three-quart baking dish (nine by 13 inches) for parties and family gatherings, but otherwise, I've found three quarts of anything to be a lot to consume before it goes mushy or stale.

A simple Pyrex Basics two-quart baking dish is my favorite (can't beat that accompanying lid!), but cobblers, crisps, and puddings do just fine in a heavy stoneware dish, like this rectangular dish from Staub, as well.

a person pouring macaroni and cheese mixture into casserole dish on counter

Serious Eats / Grace Kelly

If there's one thing every pastry chef has in common, it's a deep appreciation for a bare-bones aluminum sheet pan. Don't get taken for a ride with pricey baking sheets; pick up the simple tool all the pros use at home, the humble half-sheet pan. Our favorites are a sturdy option from Nordic Ware and one from Chicago Metallic—both are great for baking cookies, roasting a sheet pan dinner, and even for holding your mise en place in place.

baked cookies on a piece of parchment paper on a sheet pan.

Serious Eats / Irvin Lin

Due to their poor scraping mechanisms, stand mixer attachments for ice cream making tend to allow a thick layer of dairy fat to freeze around the sides of the bowl, preventing proper aeration in American-style ice cream and allowing for larger fat/ice crystal size, all of which can add up to a gummy, greasy, and/or icy ice cream. A stand-alone ice cream machine is far more effective. Even if you don't agree with that assessment, once you consider the fact that a stand-alone machine is usually a lot cheaper (flash sales aside), it's hard to argue against choosing the machine that is designed exclusively for the task.

My favorite, and the winner from our ice cream machine review, is the Cuisinart ICE-21, and it's what I use at home and in the Serious Eats test kitchen. It does a bang-up job with scraping and aeration, for ice cream that's always silky-smooth.

As with any canister-based ice cream machine, success depends on the temperature of your freezer, so make sure it's set to 0°F (-18°C). (This can be tested by wrapping a bag of frozen vegetables around a digital thermometer.) If not, the canister won't be sufficiently chilled for use, and you may need to adjust the dial.

Collage of overhead shots of Biscoff ice cream churning in an ice cream machine

Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

Aluminized steel isn't my favorite material for layer cakes, as it encourages the development of a heavier crust, but for that very reason, it's amazing for baking an evenly browned loaf, whether we're talking about classic banana bread or a sour cream pound cake.

In our review of loaf pans, we liked the sharp corners and tall sides of this nonstick loaf pan from Williams Sonoma.

The cracked and split top of sour cream pound cake in a loaf pan

Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

Reflective metals like aluminum keep muffins from browning along the bottom, which is why I prefer to bake them in a dark nonstick muffin pan. By the same token, those pans aren't the best for cupcakes, which do best in aluminum pans that keep their crusts delicate and pale.

Since baking is what I do for a living, I have both, but if I could recommend only one, it would be a nonstick pan for muffins, with greaseproof foil liners to reduce browning in cupcakes. See our muffin pan review for more information.

Collage of muffin photos: tops and bottoms of muffins made in a dark nonstick pan, showing the height and browning of muffins baked in nonstick pans

Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

Most bakers know a sturdy mesh strainer is one of the most useful kitchen tools around, but not as many folks realize how important it is for that mesh to be stainless steel. Bringing acidic liquids, like lemon juice or blackberry purée, in contact with aluminum can cause foods to discolor or develop an unpleasant metal twang.

At home, I use an eight-inch strainer for all sorts of tasks, including sifting flour and straining ice cream base; for smaller projects, I like to keep a three-inch strainer on hand as well. We've reviewed larger fine mesh strainers, and our favorite is the Rösle Stainless Steel Round Handle Kitchen Strainer; it's well-made and catches even the finest particles.

Pastry cream being strained through a fine mesh strainer into a stainless steel bowl

Serious Eats / Eric King

Offset Metal Spatulas

Ateco 8-Inch Offset Spatula

Ateco-8-inch-offset-spatula
PHOTO: Amazon
View on Amazon

For years, my husband thought I'd been calling it an "upset spatula," which, frankly, he'll never live down because there's nothing upsetting about this amazing tool. If you're crumb-coating a cake or loosening Oreo dough from the counter, this Ateco eight-inch* offset spatula will always get the job done.

For frosting cupcakes or homemade Lofthouse cookies, it's nice to have a mini offset spatula, too.

*Okay, fine, it's a 7.75-inch spatula, but who's counting?

A person using an offset spatula to frost a cake on a cake stand

Serious Eats / Eric King

The first question I always ask when troubleshooting a recipe for someone is whether or not their oven runs true to dial. Cakes that should be fluffy turn out gummy and dense when the oven temperature is too low, and excessively high heat can cause flaky pie doughs to turn out greasy instead. These problems can all be eliminated with a cheap oven thermometer, which can help you figure out what setting is best when a setting of 350°F isn't what it seems.

Canvas bags may be traditional, but they absorb odors and colors over time. If not meticulously cleaned and thoroughly dried, the sugary, wet canvas can also be a fantastic breeding ground for bacteria and mold—gross.

For those reasons, I'm all about disposable pastry bags. Even if you don't bake all the time, having a roll of these on hand beats wrangling with a MacGyvered zipper-lock bag.

This Ateco half-inch round tip will cover you for the bulk of pastry tasks, from profiteroles to homemade Oreos. For cupcakes, meringue cookies, and more, grab an assortment of large star tips as well.

If you'd like to try your hand at cookie decorating around the holidays, some couplers and fine tips are nice to have in your arsenal.

Five piping tips beside five rows of piped frosting on a piece of brown parchment paper

Serious Eats / Eric King

To bake a pie that's crisp and flaky on the bottom, steer clear of heavy stoneware or thick ceramic plates (though we did like this offering from Made In in our review of pie pans). They conduct heat too slowly, preventing the dough from puffing up as light as it should.

While not fancy, glass or aluminum options have the sort of conductivity you need to make a superior crust. Our favorite from Norpro conducts heat well and resulted in perfect crusts in our tests.

For more information, including side-by-side photos of how a pie crust behaves in different types of pans, see my in-depth guide to pie plates. (There's also a deeper dive on glass vs. metal baking pans, too.)

A mixed-fruit pie with a lattice top in a Pyrex dish, with some of the pie missing

Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

As with finding the right chef's knife, what makes for a great rolling pin is largely a matter of personal taste, so go out to a kitchen shop or antique store and try holding one in your own hands. The pin should feel light and smooth.

For me, absolutely nothing can beat the maneuverability of a simple French pin (such as the J. K. Adams French rolling pin), but if you prefer one with handles, be sure it rolls smoothly. And no, I'm not a fan of those swanky marble pins; they're too heavy and awkward for me, and there are far easier and cheaper ways to keep pie dough cool.

For experienced bakers looking to step up their cookie game, it's lovely to have an embossed rolling pin, too. Many manufacturers prioritize form over function, resulting in beautiful designs that are a death trap for dough, so it can take a bit of trial and error to find a great pin. The paisley pin above is carved to the perfect depth, with the right balance of white space to keep the dough from sticking, so it's one I can recommend without reservation (though, admittedly, it still takes practice to master).

a person using a rolling pin to transfer a rolled out pie crust to a glass pie plate

Serious Eats / Eric King

Whether slicing a hearty loaf of 100% whole wheat bread, leveling a layer cake, or cutting almond biscotti into even pieces, a reliable serrated knife is a must-have for any baker.

Our favorite from Tojiro costs $35, but be sure to check out our complete review of the best serrated knives for more options.

leveling a cake with a serrated knife

Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

Flexible, Heat-Resistant Spatulas

GIR Ultimate Spatula

GIr-ultimate-spatula
PHOTO: Amazon
$13 at Amazon View on Gir.co

I have...strong feelings about spatulas. There is no tool I use more often, so I need it to feel like an extension of my hand. For that reason, I have a zero-tolerance policy for stupid spatulas that don't do their job. If a silicone spatula is too chunky and thick to deftly scrape a bowl, it's a unitasking waste of space. If a flexible spatula could melt in my caramel sauce, it's going in the trash.

A flexible spatula stirring a pot of bubbling caramel

Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

While hands-free mixing is a dang convenient thing, it's not even a factor in my preference for a stand mixer. For starters, there is more wattage in a stand mixer vs. a hand mixer, enabling a stand mixer to power through ingredients like cold butter and eggs, making it easier to maintain proper batter and dough temperature, and ensuring cakes and cookies behave as they should. Hand mixers require slightly warmer ingredients and extra time to whip; the combination of temperature plus additional time and friction means that hand mixers often produce warmer batters and doughs, which can be problematic for many recipes, particularly cakes and cookies.

Aside from the simple issue of power, stand mixer attachments produce better results from creaming and whipping. Compared with the thin beaters of a hand mixer, the wide, fat blades of a paddle attachment will fold rather than cut through butter and sugar, entrapping more air. That leads to a higher yield in cookies and a better rise in cakes.

Meanwhile, the stand mixer's large, open balloon whisk and higher wattage mean more volume in whipped cream and meringue, compared to what you'll get from the relatively narrow beaters of a hand mixer. Due to those issues of wattage and beater shape, there are many projects hand mixers simply can't tackle, like homemade marshmallows, nougat, and my whole-egg ladyfingers.

A pastel green bowl-lift KitchenAid stand mixer.

Serious Eats / Riddley Gemperlein-Schirm

If I could have only one piece of cookware, it would be a three-quart stainless steel saucier. Its size can handle almost any stovetop task, the nonreactive metal prevents any funky flavors from developing, and the tri-ply construction conducts heat at the perfect rate. The curved-side shape of a saucier is designed to facilitate stirring, scraping, and even heat distribution, so it's the ideal vessel for persnickety pastry projects.

A one-quart saucier is handy for small batches of ganache or brown butter, and a two-quart saucier is convenient for medium-sized batches of candies and custard. They'll function equally well in savory applications, too.

Making pastry cream in a saucier with a hand mid-whisk.

Serious Eats / Tim Chin

I've written in depth about whisks before, but the short story is that, for my needs and equipment, I prefer a simple set of balloon whisks. They conform to the curved shape of my sauciers and can handle heavy custards, like the one in my chocolate cream pie.

Whipped cream being mixed in a bowl

Serious Eats / Amanda Suarez

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