This year for my birthday my super cute husband order most of my wish list items from my Allie and the Oven Amazon wishlist. I am so excited to try all the new tools and gadgets that I had on my list. Until I try them though, I thought I would just share a quick post about all the things that I really use all the time and love – tools & ingredients! I hope this is helpful and you enjoy!
My favorite ingredients-
I always have a fridge full of Kerrygold Butter. I love the flavor and texture of it for all things but it is wonderful for baking too!
I think King Arthur flour is the best flour variety for baking. I like their all purpose, bread and cake flour.
Vanilla is a touchy subject – it is so expensive that I really shopped around for a solid 3 weeks before ordering my latest variety. I decided to go with Rain’s Choice vanilla from the Vanilla Queen website. I think it is just fine but no better than my favorite Nielsen-Massey. I love the Nielsen-Massey vanilla bean paste for adding vanilla flavor and the visual of the seeds in the recipe. One of my next projects though is to make my own.
I have noticed recently that there is a pretty big variety of brown sugars out there right now. The organic brown sugars tend to be quite coarse, but some of the generic no name brand brown sugars are a little mushy and overly filled with molasses flavor. I prefer C&H or Domino when it is available. I also always go for the dark brown variety.
I usually have a jar of Falksalt in my cabinet for adding to the top of baked good
Ghiradelli 60% Bittersweet chocolate chips cannot be beat! The size alone makes them perfect for cookies. You can add fewer with an even bigger impact.
Droste cocoa has become my go-to cocoa over the past year. It is found in most grocery stores and has a wonderful deep chocolate flavor that never disappoints. It also has a wonderful box design that makes it easy to get a measuring spoon in without totally covering your hand with cocoa.
Tools-
Slowly but surely my husband is helping to transfer all our baking pans & cookie sheets to the William-Sonoma touch of gold sheets. They are wonderful and I love using them.
I HOARD parchment paper! When I am almost out I get nervous and don’t know how to handle life. I use it to bake almost everything! It makes clean up a breeze and helps everything bake evenly.
Cookie scoops are also life! I love the OXO cookie scoops – I have the small, medium & large and use them every week.
My staybowlizer is life saver. It helps to stir with one hand so that other one can take a picture, hold a baby, answer the phone, open a snack….you know…anything. It is also made of high grade silicone so you can put a hot bowl or pan on it without fear of damaging it.
I have a dough rolling mat from Martha Stewart which is amazing. The reason that I like it better than rolling on the counter or on parchment is that parchment also moves around the counter making it super hard to roll out and who knows what is on my counter…
Last but not least- my FAVORITE kitchen tool is my Kitchen Aid 6 qt Mixer! I have used a variation on this mixer to bake with since I was 11 years old and it is a work horse! The one that I have now, I have used for 7 years. Not too long ago it stopped working and secretly I was kind of excited about shopping for a new one (maybe one with a glass bowl), but…my husband Kevin, started tinkering with it, watching youtube videos and announced- “Great news! I’ve ordered 2 gears and a tub of grease and it will be fixed in a week!” It was amazing- he fixed it, it works again. So i’ll just keep making double batches of cookie dough and huge loaves of bread in it and all will be right in the world.
P.S.- These are all just my personal preferences and not at all sponsored by anyone- but if anyone wants to sponsor my blog or send me some products or ingredients to use and review – I would not be against that at all….
All images found on google images
Allie and the Oven 