22 Baking Tools Every Home Cook Needs

These 22 baking tools are essential to successfully creating your favorite baked goods.

Andrea Beck served as garden editor at BHG and her work has appeared on Food & Wine, Martha Stewart, MyRecipes, and more.

Marcus Reeves is an experienced writer, publisher, and fact-checker. He began his writing career reporting for The Source magazine. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Playboy, The Washington Post, and Rolling Stone, among other publications. His book Somebody Scream: Rap Music's Rise to Prominence in the Aftershock of Black Power was nominated for a Zora Neale Hurston Award. He is an adjunct instructor at New York University, where he teaches writing and communications. Marcus received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Aside from an oven, the right baking tools are an essential part of making your favorite cookie, brownie, quick bread, or other sweet recipes. So what kitchen equipment do you really need, whether you're a beginning baker or a seasoned pro? The following list of baking tools will help you hone in on the items you will want to have on hand for all your baking aspirations.

Then, if you have a cake recipe or trickier pastry recipe you're trying to perfect, check out our list of less essential baking tools at the end. These items help make your process faster, easier, and more impressive, but aren't absolutely necessary.

BHG / Niki Cutchall

These are the baking tools you'll reach for more often than you think, and will be useful for making a wide range of baked goods. Whether you're baking a cake or stirring up a batch of cookies, make sure you have these baking tools on hand before getting started.

Baking is all about precision, so a complete set of measuring cups and spoons is a must. You'll need dry and wet measuring cups to accurately measure all your ingredients. Keep these tools in a spot that's easy to get to because you'll use them all the time.

Most measuring spoon sets include a tablespoon, teaspoon, ½ teaspoon, and ¼ teaspoon, while most measuring cups come in sets with one cup, ½ cup, ⅓ cup, and ¼ cup. You can get by with a 1-cup size for liquid measuring cups, but it can be handy to have 2-cup and 4-cup ones in your cupboard, too.

One wooden spoon is enough, but this baking tool is very handy, so it can be helpful to have a couple around. Wooden spoons are so sturdy they're great for all kinds of stirring. You can use them with even the thickest, heaviest dough. Just remember to handwash them when you're done so they don't end up cracked or warped in your dishwasher.

We bet you reach for your rubber spatula more often than you think. This baking tool is ideal for scraping the last bit of batter or dough out of a pan or the nooks and crannies of your jam jar. They're also super handy for folding together wet and dry ingredients. Note that silicone scrapers will withstand high heat better than rubber ones.

When transferring fresh-out-of-the-oven cookies to a cooling rack or serving a cake from a 9x13 pan, there's no better baking tool than a spatula. Having one with a thin metal blade can be especially handy, and it'll be flexible enough to easily slide under anything you're moving without squishing the dough or crumbling your cookies.

This handy baking tool has more uses than you may realize. It can be used to grease a pan before pouring in cake batter, to coat the dough with melted butter or egg wash, or to "paint" milk on top of a pie crust. This is a must-have, especially if you're a frequent baker.

BHG/Niki Cutchall

It’s handy to have baking tools with multiple functions. Yes, you can use a wire whisk to beat together a few eggs, but it's handy for other things, too. In particular, it's one of the best ways to thoroughly mix dry ingredients together before combining them with wet ingredients. It's also great for stirring homemade pudding or a turkey gravy as it cooks.

We always have our kitchen shears handy whenever we're making a recipe. They can be useful in many ways, including snipping fresh herbs, cutting parchment paper to fit a pan, or even opening stubborn packages and containers.

Rolling pins are most useful for rolling out pie crusts, cookie dough, and puff pastry, but there are other ways you can put this baking tool to work in your kitchen. For example, if you don't have a food processor and need to crush cookies, chips, or crackers for a recipe, just put them in a sealable bag, then use your rolling pin to smash them to pieces.

You can put a sieve to work in a lot of different ways. For bakers, it's probably the most useful for sifting dry ingredients or adding a dusting of powdered sugar to a finished pan of brownies or cookies. This baking tool also comes in handy for draining wet ingredients (especially small items, like quinoa, that would slip through a regular colander) and removing seeds from raspberry sauces.

If you have only one knife in your whole kitchen, make it this one. A chef's knife is great for slicing, chopping, and mincing just about any ingredient your recipe calls for.

This knife belongs in every home cook's tool collection. It's great for peeling and coring foods like apples and prepping strawberries. It's also handy for cutting up other fruits and vegetables and for more delicate work for which your chef's knife is too big.

A regular baking pan (13x9x2 inches) is a definite must-have. You can use it for so many sweet things—sheet cakes, brownies, cookie bars—and, of course, it has savory uses as well. If you pick only one baking pan to stock your kitchen, make it this one.

You should have two of these baking pans on hand, since you'll need more than one to make a layer cake. Round cake pans come in 8-inch and 9-inch diameters, but either size will work with most layer cake recipes—just be sure you have two pans in the same size.

Banana bread, pumpkin bread, zucchini bread—all of our favorite homemade bread recipes call for a loaf pan. If you also want to bake your own yeast bread, it'll pay to have two of these pans in your cupboard.

The 8 ½ x 4 ½–size loaf pan is the most common and creates the classic dome shape above the rim.

Yes, the most obvious use for a pie pan is baking your own homemade pies, but there are other desserts that make this baking tool useful to have around. You also can make savory pies for dinner, like meatball pie and taco pie, along with some frozen icebox pies. They work well as shallow dishes for dredging and breading foods, too.

You don't always need to make a huge pan of brownies, and when you want a small batch, you'll need a square baking pan. Cookie bars, cakes, brownies, and corn bread are just a few baked goods you can create using this baking tool.

No one wants soggy, overbaked cookies and cakes for dessert, so make sure you've got a wire rack on hand. This handy tool allows air to circulate around baked goods as they cool, allowing moisture to evaporate away instead of staying trapped underneath.

As its name suggests, this pan is essential for making a batch of freshly baked muffins for brunch. And you'll need it to make cupcakes for your next birthday celebration. But a muffin pan can also be a more versatile baking tool, turning sweet and savory recipes into personal-sized, mini versions, such as breakfast bites, pizza cups, and mini meat loaves.

You definitely need at least one cookie sheet in your kitchen, and you'll probably benefit from having two. If you do opt for two, we recommend having one with a raised side to bake your cookies. This pan is essential for baking almost any kind of cookie. Baking sheets and sheet pans with raised sides can also be useful for cookies and work best for sheet pan dinner recipes.

Bake cookies on a cookie sheet with one raised edge and three flat sides to allow more heat to reach the dough and make it easier for the cookies to slide off.

While you don't need to go all-out on a fancy stand mixer, you need at least a hand mixer in your collection of baking essentials. It will make mixing dough and batters faster and easier, and it's the best way to mix ingredients into a thick, stiff cookie dough without tiring out your arm.

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If you haven't been baking with parchment paper, start now. Spreading a sheet over your pan before you start baking will make cleanup much easier and prevent your baked goods from sticking to the pan. Avid bakers might consider investing in a reusable silicone baking mat to be more eco-friendly.

Baking requires precise measurements. Measuring spoons and cups are helpful, but going by the weight of your ingredients is more accurate and convenient. For example, the volume of flour can vary depending on how much it's been sifted. If it's more packed down, what looks like a cup may actually be a little more. Weighing out 120 grams of all purpose flour will always equal a cup. Plus, it's less messy to just pour out your flour into a bowl on your scale than trying to level a cup.

Once you've made sure you have enough space in your kitchen for the essential baking tools, you can start adding a few items from this nice-to-have list. While not crucial to most baking recipes, these additional baking supplies will make your most tried-and-true recipes quicker and easier.

If you're big on baking pies and flaky biscuits, this is a handy baking tool. It'll make cutting cold butter or shortening into flour much easier. However, you can use two butter knives instead if you don't have one. Just move the knives in a crisscross motion to cut the butter into the flour.

While this tool is great for putting the finishing touches on cakes or a pan of brownies, it's probably not one you'll use every day. But if you want the frosting on your baked goods to look almost perfectly smooth, it's hard to beat an offset spatula for the job.

If you think using a special grater is the only possible way to zest a lemon, think again. While this baking tool will undoubtedly make zesting easier, it's unnecessary. If you don't have one, you can use a sharp knife to slice off thin slices of the peel, then finely chop them into zest.

This baking tool is handy for frequent pie-makers but not necessary for more casual bakers. It can be used to cut pastry dough smoothly, but you can use a sharp knife instead in a pinch. Just make level slices rather than one long cut, as dragging a knife through pastry can tear and toughen it.

You may use baking tools as a cooking utensil and vice versa. A slotted spoon is used more often while cooking dinner, but it can also be handy for baking. If you're making a custard or sauce, a slotted spoon will be the quickest and easiest way to spoon out large spices like a cinnamon stick or vanilla bean.

You can just as easily use your hands or a fork to help squeeze out the juice of a lemon for your citrus desserts, but if you want to get every last drop, invest in a juicer. The sieve will also strain out pulp and seeds, so you don't have to worry about accidentally mixing them into your batter or dough.

A serrated knife might come in handy for some baked recipes, but you can usually get by with just your chef's or paring knives. If you have serrated knives in your kitchen, use your tomato knife for cutting fruits and vegetables and your bread knife for slicing into your homemade bread without squashing your loaf.

To use a serrated knife properly, move the knife in a back and forth motion. Avoid pressing down and let the saw-like teeth do the work.

This baking tool certainly comes in handy if you are a big fan of fruit tarts. You'll want to invest in this specialty pan, although there aren't many uses for it outside tarts.

This pan has a latch that opens, allowing you to remove the sides, making it great for authentic cheesecakes and deep-dish pizza. But if you're not dead-set on making a traditional New York-style cheesecake, there are other recipes (like bars and no-bake recipes) you can make without this pan that are equally delicious.

You'll need this pan to make a traditional bundt (like the beautiful blueberry one pictured) or angel food cake, but you probably won't pull it out of your cupboard as often as you think. For most cake recipes, just a round or rectangular baking pan is all you need.

There are several baking tools to choose from when it comes to making pizza. If you want to make a perfectly round pizza, you'll need a pizza pan in your kitchen. But if your heart isn't completely set on a circular pizza, you can just as easily bake your pie on a regular baking sheet.

Dust flour or cornmeal on your pizza pan to prevent the dough from sticking during baking.

Jelly rolls, cake rolls, and pumpkin bars all make the case for having this pan around, but most cake, brownie, and bar recipes can also be made in a rectangular baking pan. If you do have a jelly roll pan, it's also useful for toasting nuts and roasting veggies, but a sheet pan will usually accomplish the same tasks.

This dish can certainly turn out a sky-high soufflé, which might make it worth it for master bakers to keep in their kitchens. But you can easily skip this item if you're not a frequent soufflé maker.

Ramekins are nice for making individual portions of desserts, such as crème brûlée, but you don't necessarily need them in your kitchen. Of course, if you have a set, they'll also come in handy for serving desserts to a crowd.

While a food processor is one of the most mentioned baking tools in recipe instructions, you can certainly get by without one. Don't get us wrong, though. Having a food processor will speed things along if you're a frequent baker, especially for making pie crusts and bread dough.

You can just eyeball a spoonful of dough per cookie, but cookie scoops will give you more consistent results. They come in different sizes and are also useful for evenly doling out muffin, pancake, and waffle batter.

If you're new to working with some of these tools, check out the best tips and tricks and essential cooking basics for working in the kitchen by our Better Homes & Gardens Test Kitchen. Our baking glossary has ingredients, terms, and tools you may come across in recipes and need details about. Read our guides on all things baking, whether you’re just starting out or are a whiz in the kitchen.

Sometimes recipes call for ingredients using metric measurements, so our conversion chart for both liquid and solid ingredients is an excellent tool to have on hand—print it out and post it inside your pantry for easy reference.

Are you baking at a high altitude? Here's how to allow for the difference from baking at sea level.