Baking ready with John Lewis

It’s that time of year again when I can’t help but think about baking, baking and more baking. August is not just for checking the boy’s shoes, shirts, pencil cases and the like. I also look through all my baking kit and weed out the weaker items, sacrifice the less used bits to the local charity shop and do a little recce of what else I might need.

There are some items that are the stalwarts of my kitchen. If they go missing they get replaced immediately. Let me tell you about my top picks:

1. By now many of you will know my favourite colour is green. Look at this thing of beauty. My Kitchen Aid is red at the moment. Time for an upgrade? I do make a lot of pizza dough in it…

2. A good, deep, square baking tin is essential. Great for traybakes and sheet cheesecakes, as well as being useful for roasting vegetables in.

And this little tray is perfect for getting the kids baking at the same time. Small and very heavy gauge, so good quality but also good for little hands.

3. A good heavy gauge loaf tin is a must. Bakeware that’s flimsy buckles in the oven and risks spilling the contents. No such issues with these loaf tins. A 1lb and 2lb tin are both very useful for cakes and bread.

4. I can’t tell you how often I use my loose bottomed flan tin. It was a wedding present from some good friends. It’s completely non-stick too.

5. When I first starting baking bread I wasn’t hugely successful. The dough stuck to the work surface and I often ended up in a sticky mess. A dough scraper is an essential but simple bit of kit that makes making bread so much easier.

6. I adore my Mason bowls. They are incredibly useful for soaking dried fruit in, mixing huge fruit cakes, marinating barbecue fodder in. They’re also classic and beautiful.

7. A really good quality spatula is important for ensuring every last bit of cake mixture ends up in the cake tin. Somehow my spatulas seem to gravitate to the playhouse in the garden. (Playing baking is fun).

8. Good digital scales are a must. I keep lots of spare batteries in the kitchen so that I’m never stuck part way through a recipe left guessing what 175g looks like.

9. Measuring implements are the hard workers of any kitchen – I’ve already mentioned scales but hard wearing measuring spoons (in my favourite copper) and American cup measures (also in copper) are essential.

10. Beautiful oven gloves brighten up my day.

11. A cake lifter (stop sniggering at the back) is an essential bit of kit if you’re into making layer cakes. These make moving large cakes easy and risk free from splitting down the middle. I love mine.

Now onto the less ‘essential’ bit of kit. This is the stuff I have on my Christmas, birthday and ‘treat’ list.

1. My name is Holly and I am addicted to buying biscuit cutters. I have a whole drawer full. I actually have these cute little birds already.

2. I would also like this alphabet set. Now I do already have a couple of alphabet sets but none with this lovely cursive writing. Just gorgeous.

 

3. Getting a really crisp base to pizza at home is tricky. One thing I do is to roll my dough in polenta or semolina. Another trick is to use a good quality pizza tray like this one by Paul Hollywood.

4. I love Liberty and I love anything that adorns cakes. Maybe little flags take me back to childhood holidays on the East coast, topping sandcastles with union jacks, who knows. I just love a flag. Also rather partial to this Poppy and Daisy cupcake kit, also from Liberty.

5. Sadly I now need two packs of these delightful candles for my birthday cake but I reckon I’m know with aging if cakes are topped with prettiness like this.

6. My boys are rather resistant to anything pastel or unicorn related (it’s superheroes all the way here) but if I ever have a daughter, or maybe get to borrow one for the day, then this cupcake kit will be in full use.

7. I do love a cake stand. I especially love a cake stand with a beautiful glass dome like this one. If anyone I know is reading then, hey, Christmas is coming and my birthday is not long after that. Maybe a joint present? Please?

 

8. There’s no way I can use a beautiful cake stand without beautiful cake forks, cake servers and dainty little tea spoons for that pot of Earl Grey I plan on brewing to accompany it.

 

9. Am I the only person who gets excited by beautiful, stacking storage?

10. These tins would please both me and my sons. We all love hedgehogs.

11. Sometimes all I want is a very quiet cup of tea, a slice of homemade cake and a sit down. And this is exactly the kind of cup I want to sip from.

NB: This blog post contains affiliate links, which means should you click through and buy anything I will get a small amount of money for every purchase completed.

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