Products I Love

I've been using this bread proofer for the past couple of years and absolutly love it. After my husband and I sold our house, moved into a 5th wheel RV, and became full time travelers, I use it even more.

The proofer allows me to control the temperature and humidity of the air around the dough regardless of where I am in the world. Plus, it folds down into a nice, compact little package, making storage a cinch.

I don't think I would make bread nearly as often as I do if I didn't own a standing mixer. Kneading bread by hand is an enjoyable and satisfying process, but it's still something I only want to do every now and then. Most of the time, I'm more than happy to let my mixer do the kneading for me.

For most bread recipes, it's important to use a heavy duty mixer with a 6-quart or larger bowl.

In addition to the Bread Recipes published on this site, I make a lot of sourdough bread, relying on the basic method described in this fabulous book.

Over the years I've found that I really only need three pans in my kitchen. This 3-quart saucepan, a large stockpot, and a large skillet (linked below).

It can also be useful to have a 1-quart saucepan and 8-inch skillet. But, you can get by perfectly well with nothing more than a 3-quart saucepan, stockpot, and skillet.

Aside from the 3-quart saucepan linked above, this is the pan that gets used the most often in my kitchen.

Even when baking thin layers, I like using a cake pan with 3-inch sides. Having deep sides seems to result in more even baking even when baking thin layers. And, of course, when making thick layers, a deep sided pan will help ensure none of the batter spills out into your oven while baking.

A springform pan is essential for moist, delecate cakes that are likely to be difficult to remove from a regular cake pan. I love this Nordic Ware Springform pans wide bottom, which creates a tighter seal and prevents batter from leaking out.

Even in a small kitchen I have two of these loaf pans and use them all the time for all kinds of bread and loaf cakes.

Nordic Ware makes a large line of bundt pans in all variety of shapes and designs. I am obsessed with all of them, but this is the only one I find essential.