With all the pies, cakes, cookies and edible gifts, the holiday baking season isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon. So your future self will thank you if you stock up now on these essential tools, ingredients and one brilliant new book.
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ProductNordic Ware Bundt Pans
For holiday baking, you can’t go wrong with the classics. These gorgeous, heavy-duty Bundt and mini Bundt pans from Nordic Ware fit the bill, and we’re particularly keen on their gold finish. -
Sponsored ProductNielsen-Massey Vanilla Powder
If you like to gift jars of homemade cocoa mixes, baking or cookie mixes, or granola at the holidays, Nielsen-Massey’s vanilla powder is a godsend. Made from Madagascar Bourbon vanilla beans, it’s a brilliant way to add pure vanilla flavor without adding liquid. -
ProductJoseph Joseph Tilt Mixing Bowl
For any baking marathon, you’ll need a good mixing bowl. We vote for this one because of its nonslip, wraparound base and thumbhole, which makes it comfortable to tilt and hold while whisking. -
ProductSilpat Baking Molds
Silpat’s new baking molds got top marks from our test kitchen after turning out batch after batch of perfect, easy-to-release cakes. The molds are made to fit standard half-sheet pans and come in five shapes, including mini loaf and mini muffin (shown here). -
ProductRose's Baking Basics
Rose Levy Beranbaum is famous, even among bakers, for her precision, and her latest book doesn't disappoint, with volume and weight measurements on all ingredients, and more than 600 step-by-step photos. Her tried-and-true classic recipes often include genius tweaks, like adding golden syrup to produce beautifully brown, wonderfully chewy chocolate chip cookies -
ProductValrhona Inspiration Couverture
You’ve got to admit, candy melts are convenient, but do you blanch at the ingredient list? Inspiration, Valrhona’s innovative new line of fruit and nut couvertures, behaves like baking chocolate but comes in all-natural flavors like strawberry, almond, and passion fruit. -
ProductWooden Tart Tamper
This low-tech tool comes in handy when fitting dough into and up the sides of a tart pan. It’s also useful for pressing cookie-crumb crusts into a pan and when making tarts in mini-muffin tins; for the latter, simply press the tart tamper into a ball of dough in the tin, and the dough practically shapes itself.
