Indispensable baking equipment - Part 1

I admit it, I was lazy this weekend and therefore decided to steer clear of the kitchen. This basically means that I did not bake either of the cupcake recipes I so proudly mentioned in my last post.

The trouble with baking is not the baking but the washing up afterwards, and this Sunday I was in no mood for washing up. So after I got back from church, I took a short nap (must compensate for waking up at 7:30 a.m. every Sunday), ate a lovely lunch and then settled down to finish my book - The Lost City of Z - great book and a must read for all who are interested in exploration and adventure. (Rumour has it that Arthur Conan Doyle based The Lost World at least partially on the adventures of Col. Percy Fawcett - protagonist of Lost City of Z)

Anyhoo, moving on though, I thought I'd intersperse my baking experiments with notes about equipment and if anything is indispensable in the quest for baking greatness, its measuring equipment. How can you bake without measuring cups, spoons and the like?

Of course there are exceptions to this rule - my late maternal grandma being one of them. Back in the 50s when she had no oven (let alone a weighing scale) and very little disposable income, she ensured that all four of her daughters and my grandpa had a beautifully turned out cake each birthday, and also invented some really fabulous recipes on her own which have been passed on to me - no one can beat her carrot cake and bread pudding!

I am not such an expert however and I do love my creature comforts in the kitchen. I can't resist buying shiny new implements and tools - they are necessities after all, are they not!

                                Baker's essentials 

I use my weighing scale religiously when I bake - I find that it is actually far more accurate to weigh flour and sugar in terms of grams than it is to do so by cup. I use this digital one although I do have an old fashioned one as well. I find it really exciting to put a bowl on the scale, press a button, put in the ingredient and then watch the scale work its magic. (Putting the bowl on the scale before switching it on allows the scale to make an adjustment for the weight of the bowl.) Digi scale makes me feel most high tech :)

I know a lot of people use a regular tea cup to measure stuff out but nothing beats a set of the real thing - they are a total investment, as is the spoon set. And the liquid measure, who can do without one. I actually have two of these, the one in the picture is the smaller of the two and is good for measuring in ml. The other is larger and works better for large scale projects that require litre measures.

If you're interested in baking and can't figure out why things go wrong, I strongly suggest investing in the best quality measuring equipment, you'll never be sorry about it!