Cheap, Ingenious Baking Stuff That’s Nice to Have

by Anna Merlan

I am not a professional baker, or anything close to it; I’m just an amateur home messer-arounder and a snarky little critic of certain other people’s breads. But baking has made an undeniably positive difference in my life: logistically, metaphysically, and of course, interpersonally, giving me a hobby I can talk about with my family, Instagram, the various grannies and aunties of the grocery store, and a server at an Italian restaurant who once gave me four free loaves of bread because I recognized how good it was and asked questions. (It was made with wheat from her family’s farm, which definitely helped.)  

As with a lot of hobbies, it’s possible to go nuts spending a lot of money on baking equipment. I haven’t gone that route, because I quite simply couldn’t afford to. It took me years to buy a Dutch oven to bake in (I used a heavy oven-safe soup pot before that) and when I did get one, it was because the Martha Stewart oval ones were on sale for under $100. (It was this model, which I guess you can no longer buy, though it looks like there are some great deals on eBay.) I was only able to get a stand mixer because a friend generously gave us a broken one, which my husband then fixed. 

All of which is to say: if you don’t have the budget for nice baking stuff, that is A-OK. There are tiny upgrades that are fun, user-friendly, and most of all, cheap. All of these came into my life in the last year, and now, with the zeal of the converted, I pass them on to you.