If you want your bread to be of the best quality, you need to start by using the best tools for making bread.
Whether you are making my Crusty French Bread, Bread Bowls, Dinner Rolls, or Sandwich Bread, these tools are all incredibly helpful and will make your job as the baker much easier.
My Bosch Mixer is a treasured friend. I’ve owned it for about 20 years and use it several times a week. I make bread, cookies, pizza crusts, and on and on. Mixers can be very polarizing. I don’t think they need to be. It’s often a tradition handed down from mother to daughter as to which mixer you use: Bosch or Kitchenaid. Both are excellent. I’ve owned and loved both. My Kitchenaid was damaged in a cross-country move and since I have the Bosch Mixer as well, there was no need to replace the Kitchenaid. Either will work well to make wonderful gluten-free bread.
I’ve used the Escali Kitchen Scale forever. It is really easy to tare, and measure grams, ounces, and pounds, and has a large weight capacity. It has a big enough base that most bowls and plates fit easily while still allowing the display to be visible. The Kitchen Scale has an incredibly long battery life — years if I remember correctly. You can wipe it down with a damp cloth after measuring things like rolls or loaves of bread. Just don’t completely immerse the Kitchen Scale in water. It will damage the sensor.
I have used many bread pans, but I find that I have had greater success with gluten-free bread with the Pullman Pan. It has a narrower base and higher sides than a traditional bread pan. It also holds about 9% more dough than a traditional bread pan. Most store-bought square-shaped loaves are baked in the large Pullman Pan, but I prefer the smaller version. It is just the right amount of bread to last my family for a while in the freezer. My recipe for Sandwich Bread uses the small Pullman Pan without a lid.
I’m not sure who first started using Shower Caps to cover rising bread dough, but the move was genius! I love using these Shower Caps several times over and make sure to save them until they are either wet inside or have picked up any food bits. That is when it’s time to throw that Shower Cap away and get a new one. They are inexpensive and are big enough to cover my largest mixing bowl.
This cutting board is beautiful and functional. Previously I had been using plastic or inexpensive wooden cutting boards from places like IKEA. I started noticing that the old cutting boards were peeling and chipping and I even found a piece of plastic in our food from a green cutting board. That was the last straw for me. I went on the search for the best cutting boards, and without question, John Boos cutting boards are the highest recommended in the world. It is so expensive but worth every penny. I went to the Boos Factory Outlet to get mine at a discount price. I use it every single day and I don’t worry that I’m poisoning my family anymore.
There are endless uses for Parchment Paper, but my favorite is lining a pan to make baked goods easy to remove. I have used both white and brown Parchment Paper and I think it just comes down to personal preference on the color. I prefer purchasing the 200-sheet package so that I don’t need to worry about running out. I also love the flat sheets and not messing with the roll version. The Parchment Paper sheets are easy to cut to fit any size pan but fit a regular cookie sheet right out of the box.
I have tried dozens of Spray Bottles over the years and find most of them lacking in functionality. They just don’t seem to work correctly. When I started making my own home cleaning mixtures thanks to GoCleanCo, I needed reliable Spray Bottles for my counter and shower sprays. These Spray Bottles are by far the best thing I have found, and now my old Spray Bottles have all gone in the trash.
Now we obviously are not spraying our food with cleaning solutions. I have all of my Spray Bottles clearly marked to stop me from doing exactly that.
I use a water bottle with water to spritz my dough before letting it rise so that it doesn’t get a dry top. I use a water bottle to spritz inside the oven for better oven spring from my loaves of bread.
I think I got my Cooling Rack as a wedding gift over 23 years ago. I’ve been using it ever since. I use the Cooling Rack to hold hot pans. The Cooling Rack is perfect for letting loaves of bread cool without getting soggy. You can even bake with the Cooling Rack when you need to get air under the food to cook it more evenly.
This Bread Knife is a doozy! It cuts bread better than any other Bread Knife I’ve used in the past. I highly recommend treating it with respect and keeping it out of the hands of small children. It is incredibly sharp and very effective at cutting any type of bread from French Bread to sourdough to sandwich.
Baggies for Storing in the Freezer
I’m amazed at how people store bread. The most efficient way I have for storing gluten-free bread is gallon-sized freezer Baggies. It’s essential that they have an air-tight seal. Gluten-free breads dry out more quickly than store-bought bread because there are no preservatives. I prefer to slice my bread, place pieces of parchment between the slices, and then freeze the bread in Baggies. This keeps the bread fresh for months.
I have had my French Bread Pan for about 15 years. I used to use it when making wheat-bread recipes, but it is even better for gluten-free bread. Gluten-free bread has a tendency to spread out rather than up. This French Bread Pan helps it to keep a rounded shape and forces it to curve upward. I use it every time with my Crusty French Bread.
My baguette recipe is coming soon, and this Baguette Pan is lovely for getting those long thin loaves. It is perfectly portioned so that you can make sure and shape the loaves correctly. It also helps to stop the bread from spreading out but forces it to push up instead.
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