Must Have Kitchen Tools For Success and Smiles

The tools of the trade

Kitchen tools, gadgets as some like to call them, are imbued with some sense of wonder and mystery.  Almost as if that one specific tool makes all the difference in the cake working or failing.

Hogwash.  But, there is a strong case to be made that quality does matter.  The most expensive tool isn’t as important as the right tool.

This is a short list of some kitchen gadgets I use the most frequently. Excluded are pots and pans which could be a stand-alone post.  There is a wide variety to meet various budgets and space and cooking needs.

Each item hyperlinked is linked to an affiliate vendor. That means when you purchase that item, I earn a commission at no cost to you.

Have to have and nice to have

A timer and a thermometer are must haves.  Yes, you can use your phone as a time, but sometimes I play a game and the alarm goes silent because it’s not on the screen.  A thermometer is as critical for getting temps right.  Guessing on is the chicken done or are the eggs on the double boiler right, no guessing is as certain as a thermometer.

A tabletop proofer is nice to have.

The items here are not rank ordered for I can’t know your needs.  But, these are items I find I use all the time and not having them would really make baking and cooking harder for no reason.

The Gadgetry

Whisks
Sheet Pans
Thermometer
Timer
Bowl Scraper
Bench Scraper
Forceps
Offset Spatula
Scale
Cooling Rack
Stand Mixer
Wooden Spoons
Other Stuff

 

Whisks

Any gadget has to be able to do the job.  A whisk needs to hold together, whisk the cream or egg whites quickly and well and stand up to dish washing.

I find pretty is less important than functional.  Whisks of silicone or colors and few wires do not function as well as sturdy stainless steel wire whisk with  10 wires is better than whisks with 6.  Plastic or silicone might be cute, but wire works best for the sturdy business of whisking.  I prefer, at home, I prefer a 10 inch whisk or an 11 inch whisk but also have a 9 inch whisk.

Fancy sticks with ball bearings at the end or flat whisks seem more gimmicky than functional so I do not buy them.

Sheet pans

Cooks and chefs and bakers call these pans sheet pans and then refer to their size, full or half, to designate which to use.

Sometimes these are called jelly roll pans but the important factor here is the pan be of thick enough metal to be durable.  A wobbly hot pan is not something you want in the kitchen.  Also, sheet pans which have iron and can rust are not much preferred.  The prevention of rust is too much work.

Aluminum sheet pans do not rust, are light weight, transfer energy efficiently and aren’t flimsy.

Most home ovens are not wide enough for full sized sheet pans, but can easily hold half sheet pans.  This one from Winco is a good pan, and this one from Amazon is good.

Thermometer

Thermometers have a wide variety of uses and specializations. Oven thermometers and cooler thermometers. Thermometers for candy and chocolate and deep frying and roasting, but maybe the single most important one is an instant read thermometer to know when the chicken is done.

Ah, but still more choices. Battery operated or no?  Digital or dial? Fancy or basic or laser?

The laser thermometer is fun to play with and does have more functions than checking how hot the coals are in the fireplace. Testing the outside of a mixing bowl of hot sugar-just to verify what your hand tells you-to make sure the butter won’t melt or to check the surface of croissant dough.

Candy thermometers and frying thermometers are often the same thing, but if you do both on the same day or prefer not to mix fat with your sugar, having two might be a good idea.

Chocolate tempering thermometers are pretty specialized and if you aren’t making chocolates, there’s no reason to buy one.

That instant read dial face, is, however, very important.

Timer

Gotta have a timer.

My grandma had a pinkish aluminum dial timer which lasted for years. There’s much to appreciate tech that requires no batteries or charging.  Nothing else rang like that.

Today’s electronic timers have beeps that sound like almost all the other beeps.  Too many beeps.

Yes, it is so that the battery operated timers can keep track of several items at one time and they are easily, mostly, programmed.  But, I admit to being a fan of the nostalgia of that single dial timer.

Bowl Scraper

As tools go, a bowl scraper is not much to look at.  It’s a piece of plastic.  Big deal.  Except, it is a big deal.

The function is to clean a bowl quickly and thoroughly.  It also can be pressed into service to pick up chopped anything from the counter and move it easily to a mixing bowl or pan.

Bowl scrapers are now made in a variety of shapes and colors and some are even ergonomically designed.  I see little use for that.

A curve is good.  So is a taper on the edge to help slide under the stuff.

Bench Scraper

A subcategory of the bowl scarper is a bench scraper.

The blade is made of metal, not plastic, and serves the main two purposes of scraping a wooden baker’s bench clean of the stuck on dough as well as cutting dough into portions.  I use mine often and I like this one for the larger sized face and width for large doughs.

Forceps

Forceps look like big tweezers because, well, basically they are.

I do not like tongs. I use them only for lifting hot pots from the oven or grabbing hot things from the oven.  I do not use them on food. The edges are sharp and cut the food or rip it and that’s not good.

Forceps, also called kitchen tweezers, come a wide variety of quality and from a picture, it is impossible to know good from bad.  One tip is the weight of the tool.  These kitchen tweezers are a hefty 4 oz.  Mine weighs 3.4 oz but has no brand name.  This is pretty close.  I’ve a second pair which is far lighter and, therefore, flimsier and I rarely use them.  They just don’t do what I need and that is hold the food well.

I’m not prone to the fanciness available in kitchen tweezers.  I’ve pretty basic needs and those needs are covered.

Offset spatula

Offset spatulas look kinda funky. Almost like a bent palatte knife which is mostly what it is.

Bakers and cake decorators use them for smoothing cake batter and icing cakes, but I find them excellent as turners in hot pans.  I am not a fan of traditional kitchen spatulas, or pancake turners.  I find them too wide and unwieldy for small pans or small things.

Offsets come in a variety of sizes.  I use the small ones for spreading peanut butter and jelly and condiments on sandwiches.

For the stove and icing cakes I use an 8 inch and a 12 inch off-set spatula.

A comment about personal preference.  These come with either wood or plastic handles.  I prefer wood.  The single most important reason is plastic melts but may not drip.  Grabbing a melty plastic handle is gonna hurt.  Wood, when hot, has a sign.  And, it can be sanded smooth again.  Of course, get what suits your needs best.  My wee offsets are both wood and plastic, but both large are wood.  Well worn, too, I might add.

There is spatula called a fish spatula or Peltex which I find useful for delicate items such as fish.  It’s a bit wider at the business end and has spaced for a curious look and functional design.  It is also effective to lift items out of poaching liquid.

Scale

Every baker knows a scale is the best way to ensure consistency. Gravity never fails. Cups and measuring spoons, on the other hand, are not always so level headed.

That old Weight Watcher’s style scale, you know, with the cup on top and the spring needle are fine for that dinner portion, but well short of the kind of accuracy and quantity we need to measure.

From a few grams of yeast to a few kilos of flour, that wee scale is not up to the task.

I am of mixed feelings toward battery operated thermometers, I am firmly pro-battery scales. And, most of them have a cord ability which is really the sweet spot.

A good scale should be a few things.  It ought to have a broad range and be able to weight at least 1 gram.  For small recipes, yeast or baking soda or powder may be very tiny amounts.

The scale should also be able to handle 10 or more pounds.  You’ll almost never need that much flour at once in a home kitchen, but a scale which often measures midpoint will tend to be more accurate.

It should be made of metal, not glass.  Cute is fine but not practical. Metal scales are easier to clean and bump and worry not about shattering.

Your scale should easily switch between grams and ounces and show grams as well as kilos, ounces as well as pounds.  It should also have a tare feature.

Budget is rather broad and I’ve found you don’t always see the value for a higher price.  However, a very cheap scale will reveal why it’s cheap soon enough.

Also, if you have the option to be picky, what kind of battery it takes can make changing that battery easy or irksome.  AA or 9 volt are pretty common, but some take odd watch type batteries which can run out of juice quickly and cost a bit more than I want to spend on a battery.

I use an Escali scale.  The exact scale is no longer made, as far as I can tell, but I am happy with its ease of use, the power cord and 9 volt battery.  The closest I see, which I’ve used, is this one.  Frankly, I was a bit disappointed in it.  It did not come with a plug and the scale tray was not secure.  Nice for cleaning, but bothersome when not.  The next closest, which I have not used is this. Taylor scales are also highly recommended and have a very good reputation.

Cooling rack

Every baked item needs a proper place to cool.  Cooling racks come in a variety of sizes and each size fits a specific pan in the restaurant.

That’s only relevant if you wish to use the wire rack on a sheet pan, then making sure the right rack is on the right pan prevents mess.

I have 2 racks to fit my half sheet pans and 4 quarter sized racks for the small sheet pans.  Those racks also get the most use cooling bread or muffins or cinnamon rolls.

Stand mixer (Yes, that’s 11)

Without a doubt one of the most expensive piece of equipment you’ll buy.  A good stand mixer, Kitchen Aid, for example, also has some tools which can add to the usefulness of the mixer.  I use the grinder attachment almost weekly.  I grind my own burger and make my own chicken patties.

Kitchen Aid mixers come in a variety of bowl sizes.  4.5 quart, 5 quart, and 6 quart sizes and each has more power than the previous.  Also available is a variety of hand held mixers.  I really don’t use the hand held, so I’ve nothing to offer except they look convenient. My mom had one and an old Sunbeam which had a cool knob at the end which controlled the speed.

Kitchen Aid is now a Whirlpool company but used to be made by Hobart, a commercial kitchen appliance-mixers and slicers and such-company with a good reputation.

For home cooking and baking, I cannot recommend the 4.5 quart.  It is simply too small a bowl to successfully mix a loaf of bread in.  I’ve a 5 quart and that gets taxed sometimes.  The 6 quart is a good sized bowl and a bigger price.

Budget is, of course, important, but so too is the absence of angst that the machine can’t handle the mixing job.

Kitchen Aid mixers can operate a wide variety of attachments, from pasta rollers and cutters to meat grinders and more.  I use my machine to grind my own beef for ground beef.  I have the plastic grinder.  It’s fine, but over the years has developed some cracks in the casing.  Kitchen Aid offers a metal casing grinder which might be better suited to a person who will grind meat often.  I’ll also make my own chicken patties and sausage.  If you plan to make a lot of sausage and stuff it into casings, the grinder attachment will make you crazy.  It just takes too long and the worm can warm the sausage to the point the emulsion breaks.  For occasional sausage stuffing it is fine.  Serious sausage stuffing requires a serious tool: this one.

I like Kitchen Aid products and have used them mostly my whole cooking life.  My principle complaint is the plastic knobs on the levers break pretty easily.  I have seen some machines motors give out, but those were machines in restaurant kitchens.  In the case of the mixer I was using, the repair was easy enough given that the machine had to be shipped out.  Another time I saw the chef repair the mixer himself with a new motor and it worked fine.

Wooden Spoons

Yeah, that’s 12.
I really do love my wooden spoons.  They last forever, are light weight, don’t get hot and don’t scratch the pans.  And, when they do get hot, you know.  They burn.  But, they can be sanded and made nearly whole again.

The Other Stuff

There’s more, such as knives and cutting boards and pots and pans, but those are, to my thinking, outside the realm of gadgets.  Those are must haves.  And we must talk about them, but that’s another page.

Choosing well the right knife, cutting board, and cook set can feel overwhelming.  Which is right and for what use and why?  Good questions.  If you wish to chat, hit me up in an e-mail and ask me your questions.  I’ll be happy to share my thoughts.