Tools can make or break your pastry making experience.  With the right tools you the experience can be fun, easy, and enjoyable. Without them it can be beyond frustrating and you’ll rarely get the results you want. Here is a list of my essential baking tools. Just click the picture to link you to the item on amazon.

Food Scale:

Most of the recipes I share are written in pounds and ounces rather than by cup.  Measuring by weight rather than volume is much more accurate, and if you’re going to be making professional baked goods you need a good food scale.

Turn Table: 

It’s key for icing cakes, but is useful for decorating other desserts as well.  Tarts, cheesecakes, cupcakes, cookies.  If you’re doing any piping work you’re going to want a reliable turn table.  The beauty of this one is it’s made from cast iron AND it comes with a nonslip pad.  I’ve had mine for 12+ years and looks and works exactly as it did the day I bought it.  It’s virtually indestructible. 
Pastry Brushes:

Pastry brushes can be used to spread a bit of eggwash onto unbaked pastries, or for giving that extra shine to a fruit tart with some apricot jam.  You can use them to brush away excess flour from delicate doughs. A must have for sure.  I like the silicon ones because you don’t have to worry about tiny bristles getting into your baked creations.

Cake Spatulas:

They’re called cake spatulas but I use them for so many desserts.  They are great for decorating and spreading on icing but they also are perfect for lifting delicate desserts onto trays.  This set is perfect because it gives you everything you need.  A mini offset and large offset spatula are great when you need to decorate at tricky angles, and a straight spatula is perfect for getting clean straight edges.

Bench Scraper:

Use this tool to quickly clean your work surface, or to divide sticky dough into smaller portions when making bread or rolls.  It can also be used to clean up the edges of an iced cake.

Silpats:

You can always use parchment when baking on baking sheets, but these are much more convenient and NOTHING will stick to them.

Pastry Bags and Tips:

These are the ultimate essential for me.  I use them to decorate, but I also use them to pipe cookies, macarons, fillings on cakes, the list goes on.  As for tips, a simple round tip (large and small) and couple of star tips will be what you will use most.  No need to buy a bajillion of them.  I like the ones below the best.