These baking essentials are great for everyday baking. Every home cook should keep a well-stocked kitchen with ingredients used for baking. I will go over what you should keep in your refrigerator, pantry and spice cabinet.
Keeping a well-stocked pantry, refrigerator and spice cabinet is crucial for cooking from scratch. Making sure to not only keep what you need for everyday cooking, but for baking is equally important. I have already gone over a few of these ingredients in my Pantry Essentials and Spice Cabinet Essentials posts.
You can find those posts here.
I do a lot of baking and over the years learned what I like to bake with and how much to keep on hand. It is nice to be able to bake up a tasty treat anytime I have a craving for one, or need to bake something for a holiday, birthday, or party. The list I have made is a pretty basic list and will help you get started with stocking your baking essentials. The more you bake from scratch you, the more you learn what you like to use and should keep stocked.
Spice Cabinet
Here is a basic list of spices to keep stocked in your spice cabinet for baking.
- Cinnamon
- Ginger
- Cloves
- Allspice
- Nutmeg
- Salt
You will find a lot of recipes that use these spices. Salt is great for breads and balancing the sweetness of baked goods.
The Pantry
Many of the items you use in everyday cooking are also used in baking. More than likely you already keep these items stocked in your pantry.
- Baking Powder
- Baking Soda
- Yeast
Baking soda and baking powder are leaveners used in cakes, cookies, brownies and more. Leaveners help with the rise of baked goods. Yeast is an important ingredient used in bread making. Yeast is used in bread to make it rise. Unopened yeast can be stored in the pantry. Once opened yeast should be kept in the refrigerator to extend its shelf life.
Flours
- All Purpose– a must have for your pantry. This flour is a work horse in the kitchen. It is used for breading foods, cakes, breads and more.
- Bread Flour- Great for bread making because of its higher protein content. This helps with more gluten development, which yields a better structured bread.
Cornmeal– A must have in my kitchen pantry. I love making cornbread or lightly dusting pizza dough. Cornmeal is also used as a breading like in fried fish or okra.
Old Fashioned Oats– are great for using in cookies, muffins, pancakes and more. Do not use instant oats in baking, they will become mushy when baked.
Sweeteners
- White– used in almost all of your baked goods.
- Brown Sugars-light and dark are great to keep in your pantry. These add flavor to baked goods like chocolate chip cookies, chocolate chip cookie bars and more.
- Honey is a great sweetener to have on hand. Honey can be used in numerous ways. In pancakes, english muffins, granola and more.
- Maple Syrup– is also a great sweetener that can be used to sweeten all kinds of things from your morning coffee to baked goods.
- Corn Syrups– I like to keep light and dark corn syrups on hand. Corn Syrups are used in pies, cookies, candies and more.
- Molasses is a must in my pantry for fall inspired desserts like molasses cookies. Molasses is also great for making brown sugar.
Cocoa Powder is a must for your pantry. It can be used in frostings, cakes, cookies, brownies and so much more. Dutch Processed Cocoa Powder is a great choice.
Chocolate Chips– Besides chocolate chip cookies, chocolate chips are great to use in lots of different recipes. It’s always great to have these on hand when you are craving a chocolatey treat. Semi-sweet are good to keep stocked.
Vanilla Extract– I put vanilla extract in almost all of my baked goods for flavor. You can also keep other extracts like Almond Extract, Mint Extract, Orange Extract, and Strawberry Extract.
Cornstarch-Cornstarch is great to keep in the kitchen for all kinds of culinary uses. In baking you typically see it used to thicken sauces, curds and custards.
Milks– Keeping a few different shelf stable milk products in your pantry is a great for when you need to make a fast caramel or run out of milk in the refrigerator and need to bake something that calls for milk.
- Powdered Milk can be used to replace milk in a recipe if you run out of milk in your refrigerator. It is. also found in some bread recipes as well as cookie recipes.
- Evaporated Milk- used in cakes, pies and candies.
- Sweetened Condensed Milk– great or making quick caramels and used for cakes.
Oils
- Vegetable Oil or Canola Oil are great to keep on hand for many different baked goods.
- Coconut Oil is a great oil to use in place of vegetable/canola oil in recipes. Coconut Oil is a nutritious and healthy option.
Refrigerator Essentials
A few key ingredients for baking are kept in the refrigerator. As well as a few items that I find are great to keep in the refrigerator for baking.
- Milk is used in so many baked goods. Whole milk is best, but you can use 2% if that is what you keep in your fridge. I wouldn’t use milk with less fat than 2% though.
- Buttermilk Powder-I have recently become a huge fan of buttermilk powder. I rarely buy buttermilk because it goes bad before I use it all. Keeping buttermilk powder in the refrigerator is a great way to still have buttermilk in your recipes when needed.
- Heavy Cream– Is used for making icings, frostings and more.
- Butter– Unsalted butter is a must for baking. It is used in everything from cookies to cakes. I like to keep a few pounds of butter stocked in my fridge at all times.
- Eggs– These are vital to baking; eggs help bind things and are the key ingredient in meringues.
- Yeast is best kept in the refrigerator to help extend its shelf life.
I hope this list is helpful. These are the items that I use frequently in my kitchen for baking. It is nice being able to bake when I want to and not have to run to the store to grab ingredients. Scratch cooking is so much fun and keeping your kitchen stocked makes cooking run smoothly.
Try out one of these delicious recipes!
Homemade recipes for everyone!