Just Baking

This week’s edition of At the Baker’s Bench will focus on the staples you’ll need to stock a well-equipped baker’s pantry. This list is far from exhaustive, and you certainly don’t need everything on it to get started in baking. If you’re beginning with bare shelves and building up from there, I’d suggest purchasing the items in the “Pantry Essentials” list. These are the rock-bottom staples.

Before beginning any recipe, be sure to read through the entire thing - the ingredients list and the directions - before starting. Some recipe authors sneak an extra ingredient into the directions portion, or perhaps there’s a variation given that includes ingredients you’ll want to use. The more you bake, the more you expand your repertoire of recipes, the more diversified your pantry of ingredients will become.

Flours (wheat-based): All-purpose unbleached white flour, whole wheat flour, cake flour, bread flour

Gluten-free flours: Amaranth flour, arrowroot starch, brown and white rice flour, buckwheat flour, cornmeal, garbanzo or gram flour, millet flour, nut meals, quinoa flour, sorghum flour, soy flour, tapioca flour, teff flour

Sugars: Granulated sugar, brown sugar (light and dark), powdered (or confectioner’s) sugar, corn syrup (light and dark), molasses, honey, real maple syrup, turbinado sugar

Dairy: Large eggs, milk, heavy cream, sour cream, yogurt, buttermilk, cream cheese, ricotta cheese

Fats: Vegetable oil, vegetable shortening (e.g., Crisco), unsalted and salted butter, pure lard, margarine (must contain at least 60 percent vegetable oil; do not use “light” or low-fat margarine spreads)

Fat substitutes: Fruit purees (prune, apricot), unsweetened applesauce

Leavening agents: Baking powder, baking soda, active dry yeast granules, instant/bread machine yeast granules, fresh yeast cakes, cream of tartar

Salt: Table salt, kosher salt

Other dry goods: Cornmeal, cornstarch, rolled oats, quick oats, xanthan gum

Flavorings and colorings: Cocoa powder, semisweet and unsweetened baker’s chocolate bars, flavoring extracts and oils, fruit juice and zest; gel food colors

Essential spices: Ground cinnamon, ground ginger, ground nutmeg, ground cloves

Essential extracts (pure): Vanilla, almond, peppermint, orange, lemon, anise

Add-ins: Chocolate and other flavored baking chips, nuts, dried fruit, poppy seed, sesame seeds, millet, sunflower seeds, candy bits, etc.

Pantry Essentials:

• All-purpose flour
• Granulated sugar, light brown sugar, honey
• Eggs, milk
• Vegetable oil, butter
• Baking powder, baking soda, yeast granules (active or instant)
• Salt
• Cocoa powder (unsweetened)
• Ground cinnamon, pure vanilla extract

Ingredient Tips:

• Always store your flours and dry goods in tightly sealed containers away from heat and moisture. For storage longer than a few months, you can wrap bags of flour tightly in plastic and refrigerate or freeze. This is especially important with whole wheat flour, which tends to get rancid sooner than white flour due to the presence of the wheat germ in it.
• Do not use artificial flavorings. Pure extracts and oils will provide better flavor and will not evaporate upon cooking, so you won’t have to use as much. Choose gel over liquid food color when possible. The colors are more intense and will not dilute the food you are trying to color.
• Pay attention to the recipe when measuring out ingredients such as baking soda and baking powder. The two are not interchangeable.
• Many recipes, especially those for quick breads, muffins, brownies, and dense cakes or cookies, are adaptable to low-fat modifications using fruit puree or unsweetened applesauce for up to half of the called-for fat. If you choose to modify the recipe in this way, lower the oven temperature by 25 degrees F, and check a few minutes early for doneness.