Products I Love

I've been using this bread proofer for the past couple of years and absolutely 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 into a nice, compact package, making storage a cinch.

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.

One of my other favorite sourdough bread baking books

Baking bread in a cloche is a fantastic way to get a gorgeous crispy crust. The cloche traps moisture that evaporates from the dough as it bakes. The moisture turns to steam, which keeps the dough moist during baking. The dough expands, swelling into a plump loaf of bread. Once the moisture evaporates, the loaf develops a crisp, thin, golden crust.

I love these bread-proofing baskets. They support the dough while it rises, helping it develop into gorgeously shaped round loaves

A bread lame is a sharp razor specifically designed to create perfect slashes in bread dough before it bakes.

When making bread dough that requires kneading, I always use my stand mixer.

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

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.