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The weather outside may be terrible, but we hope your holiday cookies are enjoyable. The tools you use can make everything different, make your dough bake evenly and make your decorations glow. We spent 200 hours researching and testing 20 basic biscuit-related items to find the best equipment to make holiday baking fun and easy.
In writing this guide, we sought advice from the famous baker Alice Medrich, the author of Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-In-Your-Mouth Cookies and the most recent Flavor Flours; Rose Levy Beranbaum, Rose’s Christmas Cookies and The Author of books such as Baking Bible; Matt Lewis, cookbook author and co-owner of New York Pop Baking; Gail Dosik, cookie decorator and former owner of One Tough Cookie in New York. And I used to be a professional baker myself, which means I spent a lot of time scooping up cookies, and more time for piping decorations. I know what is practical, what is essential, and what does not work.
This 5-quart stand mixer can handle almost any recipe without beating on the counter. It is one of the quietest models in the KitchenAid series.
A good vertical mixing opportunity makes your baking (and cooking) life easier. If you bake a lot and have been struggling with a low-grade blender or hand blender, you may need to upgrade. A well-made vertical mixer can produce rustic bread and moist cake layers, can quickly whipped egg whites into meringues, and can also make dozens of holiday biscuits.
We believe that KitchenAid Artisan is the best mixer for home bakers looking for equipment upgrades. We started introducing mixers in 2013, and after using them to make biscuits, cakes and breads as a guide to the best stand mixers, we can say with certainty that the brand that launched the first table mixer in 1919 is still the best thing. We have used this blender in our test kitchen for many years, proving that sometimes you really can’t beat the classic. Artisan is not cheap, but since it often provides refurbished equipment, we think it may be an economical machine. In terms of money, KitchenAid Artisan’s performance and versatility are unmatched.
Breville has nine powerful speeds, can consistently mix thick doughs and lighter batters, and has more accessories and functions than the competition.
In other words, the weight of a stand mixer is quite large and it has a large footprint on your countertop, while a high-quality machine costs hundreds of dollars. If you need a mixer to make only a few batches of biscuits per year, or need to beat egg whites to make soufflés, you may be able to use a hand mixer. After spending more than 20 hours researching and testing our guide to the best hand blender, we recommend Breville Handy Mix Scraper. It stirs the dense cookie dough and quickly beats the delicate batter and soft meringue, and is equipped with more useful accessories and functions that cheaper mixers do not have.
These deep metal bowls are perfect for holding rogue dripping water from rotating mixers and daily mixing tasks.
Many cookie recipes are so simple that you can almost rely on the bowl of a stand mixer, but usually at least an extra bowl is needed to mix the dry ingredients. In addition, if you want to mix a bunch of frostings of different colors, a good set of mixing bowls will come in handy.
You can find many beautiful bowls with handles, spouts and rubber bottoms there, but after years of baking experience and consulting experts, we think you still can’t beat the basics. Plastic bowls are impossible because they get dirty easily and cannot withstand high temperatures, while silicone bowls are not strong and produce odors. The ceramic bowl is very heavy and the edges tend to chip. So you have two choices: stainless steel or glass. Each has its advantages.
The stainless steel bowl is very light, so it is easy to pick up or hold firmly with one hand. They are also very indestructible, you can throw them around or discard them without any risk of going beyond the dent. After testing seven sets of stainless steel bowls for our best mixing bowl guide, we believe that the Cuisinart stainless steel mixing bowl set is the best choice for most tasks. They are durable, beautiful, versatile, easy to hold with one hand, and have a tight lid suitable for storing leftovers. Unlike some of the other bowls we tested, they are deep enough to hold splashes from a hand mixer, and wide enough to easily fold the ingredients together. There are three sizes of Cuisinart bowls: 1½, 3, and 5 quarts. The medium size is great for mixing a batch of icing sugar, while the larger bowl should just fit a standard batch of biscuits.
The big advantage of glass bowls is that they can be placed in the microwave, which makes things like melting chocolate easier. They also look better than stainless steel and can double as dishes. Glass bowls are heavier than metal bowls, which makes them more difficult to pick up with one hand, but you might like the extra stability. Of course, glass is not as durable as steel, but our favorite Pyrex Smart Essentials 8-piece mixing bowl is made of tempered glass and is not easily broken. Pyrex bowls are available in four useful sizes (1, 1½, 2½, and 4 quarts), and they have lids so you can store a batch of cookie dough in the refrigerator or prevent the icing from drying out.
The affordable Escali scale is best for most home cooks who want consistent results when baking and cooking. It is very accurate, reads the weight quickly in increments of 1 gram, and has a long auto-closing function of approximately four minutes.
Most professional bakers swear by kitchen scales. The fine alchemy of baking relies on precision, and a cup measured only by volume can be very inaccurate. According to Alton Brown, 1 cup of flour can equal 4 to 6 ounces, depending on factors such as the person measuring it and the relative humidity. The scale can mean the difference between light butter cookies and dense flour cookies-plus, you can measure all the ingredients into the bowl, which means fewer plates to clean. Converting recipes from cups to grams is an extra step, but if you have a chart containing the standard weight of baking ingredients, it shouldn’t take long. Alice Medrich (recently put forward the case of baking with a scale in the Washington Post) pointed out that if you don’t have a cookie scoop but want to make your small biscuits exactly the same size (this ensures that they bake evenly).
After nearly 45 hours of research, three years of testing and expert interviews to get the best kitchen scale guide, we believe that the Escali Primo digital scale is the best scale for most people. The Escali scale is very accurate and can quickly read the weight in 1 gram increments. It is also affordable, easy to use and store, and has a long battery life. In the model we tested, this scale has the longest automatic shut-off function, so you can take the time to measure. We think this 11-pound kitchen scale is perfect for all your basic home baking and cooking needs. In addition, it also provides a limited lifetime warranty.
For larger batches, we recommend My Weigh KD8000. It is huge and weighs only a whole gram, but it can easily hold 17.56 pounds of high-capacity baking.
This set of sturdy, accurate cups is not unique—you can find several equally good clones on Amazon—but it is the most cost-effective, offering seven cups instead of six.
This classic design is one of the most durable glasses we have found. Its fade-resistant markings are clearer than other glasses we tested, and cleaner than the plastic version.
Stubborn bakers know that using a scale is a more accurate method of measuring dry ingredients. Measuring with a cup—it depends on volume without considering density—is an approximation at best. However, before American cookbook authors gave up the imprecise convention of cups, most home bakers wanted to use measuring cups in their toolboxes. If you do not currently have a glass liquid measuring cup and a set of metal toasts, you should invest at the same time. The liquid will stay level by itself, so it is best to measure it according to the fixed line on a transparent container. Flour and other dry ingredients are piled up together, usually you use the dip sweep method to measure them, so a flat-sided cup is best for scooping and smoothing.
Conducted more than 60 hours of research and testing since 2013, talked with four professional bakers, and tried 46 measuring cup models as our guide to the best measuring cups, we confidently recommend simple gourmet stainless steel for dry ingredients Measuring cup and Pyrex 2-Cup liquid measuring cup. Both are more durable than other cups, easier to clean, and are the most compact cups we have tried. And they are also very accurate (as far as the cup is concerned).
OXO’s whisk has a comfortable handle and a large number of flexible (but not fragile) wire loops. It can handle almost any task.
Whisks come in various shapes and sizes: a large balloon whisk for whipping cream, a slender whisk for cooking custard, and a small whisk for frothing milk in coffee. All the experts we interviewed have at least a few different things on hand, and Alice Medrich declared that “for anyone baking, it’s important to have a blender of different sizes.” However, for making biscuits, you don’t use this tool. To mix dry ingredients or make icing, so use a narrow medium mixer. All our experts emphasize that, as Matt Lewis said, “the simpler the better.” The performance of agitator shaped like a tornado or a metal ball rattling inside the wire is no better than a simple, sturdy teardrop-shaped model.
After testing nine different egg beaters for our best egg beater guide, we believe that the OXO Good Grips 11-inch balloon egg beater is the best choice for various tasks. It has 10 strong, flexible threads (the more the better, because each thread increases the stirring power), and the most comfortable handle of all the blenders we have tested. In our tests, it beats cream and egg whites faster than most other whisks we have tried, and can easily reach into the corners of the pan to prevent the custard from sticking. The bulbous handle conforms to the contours of your hand and is coated with rubber TPE for easy gripping even when wet. Our only complaint is that the handle is not completely heat-resistant: if you leave it on the edge of a hot pan for too long, it will melt. But this shouldn’t be a problem of making cookies (or many other mixing tasks), so we don’t think this is a deal breaker. If you want to listen to the advice of our experts and get a variety of sizes, OXO also produces a 9-inch version of this whisk.
If you really want an egg beater with a heat-resistant handle, we also like the simple Winco 12-inch stainless steel piano wire whip. It costs slightly less than OXO, but it is still sturdy and well-made. Winco has 12 elastic threads. In our test, the whipped cream can be quickly completed, and it is easy to operate around the small pan. The smooth stainless steel handle is not as comfortable as OXO, but it is still very good, especially for simple tasks such as mixing dry ingredients. You can also get sizes from 10 to 18 inches.
It is small enough to fit in a peanut butter jar, but strong enough to press down on the dough, and flexible enough to clean the edges of the batter bowl.
When baking biscuits, a good, sturdy silicone spatula is essential. It should be hard and thick enough to press the dough together, but flexible enough to easily scrape off the sides of the bowl. Silicone is the material of choice for old-fashioned rubber spatulas because it is food-safe, heat-resistant and non-sticky, so you can use it to melt butter or chocolate and mix, and the sticky dough will slip off immediately (in addition, you can throw it away) Into the dishwasher).
In our guide to the best spatulas, we found that the GIR spatula is the best in the silicone series. This is a piece of silicone. We prefer this design to competitors with wooden handles and detachable heads; therefore, it easily enters the dishwasher, and there is no chance for dirt to stay in corners and crevices. The small head is slender enough to fit in a peanut butter jar, but it is comfortable and quick to use in a curved pan, and the parallel edges can scrape off the straight sides of the wok. Although the tip is thick enough to allow the spatula to press the dough, it is also flexible enough to slide smoothly and cleanly on the edge of the batter bowl.
Compared with competitors’ flat thin sticks, the sleek handle feels better, and because the flat sides are symmetrical, both left-handed and right-handed chefs can use this tool. When we used it at high temperatures, even if we pressed our head down on the hot pan for 15 seconds, it showed no signs of degradation.
GIR Spatula comes with a lifetime warranty and is still pleasant to use. Bright, bright colors look great on the wall.
These are not as heavy as the all-inclusive model, but their cost is much lower. For the occasional baker, this is a good setting.
A simple fine mesh filter is a great multi-purpose tool that you can take with you when you bake. You can use it to sift the flour, which (if you use a measuring cup) can help you avoid overloading the cookies with a dense flour scoop. Even if you weigh the ingredients, sieving them can still aerate the flour and prevent the pastry from thickening. This step is essential for removing clumps from ingredients such as cocoa powder. In addition, if you sift all the dry ingredients together at once, it can complete the work of mixing them. If you want to sprinkle icing sugar or cocoa powder (with or without template) on the cookies, then a small filter can also come in handy when decorating. Of course, a good filter can also help you drain pasta, rinse rice, wash fruit, filter custard or broth or any other type of liquid.
We did not test the filter, but we did get some good suggestions from other sources. Several of our experts recommend buying kits in multiple sizes; for example, Gail Dosik uses larger sizes, such as sifting out lumps from cocoa powder, which a blender cannot do. One point, and when she “wants to like dessert” and sprinkles her cookies or cakes with powdered sugar. You can find many such suits, but many cheap ones will not last long: the steel will rust, the mesh will warp or pop out of its binding, as Cooke Illustrated in its review As pointed out, the handle is particularly prone to bend or break.
The strongest set on the market is probably the all-inclusive 3-piece stainless steel filter set, Baked owner Matt Lewis told us that even in the kitchen of his high-volume bakery, it has “withstood the test of time”. But at $100, the package is also a real investment. If you do not plan to run the filter through the ringer, you may want to consider the Cuisinart 3 mesh filter set. Among the five filter models we considered based on the suggestions of four experts and reviews of Cook’s Illustrated, Real Simple, and Amazon, the Cuisinart product is the most affordable option in the set, and our three experts believe this is a must . This is much more cost-effective than the All-Clad suit. Although none of our experts specifically mentioned it, this suit is currently well-reviewed on Amazon. The mesh is not as good as the All-Clad set. Some reviews point out that the basket can bend or warp, but the Cuisinart filter can be dishwasher-washed and seems good to most reviewers who use it frequently. If you plan to use the filter only occasionally, or only for baking, then the Cuisinart set should serve you well.
Many experts told us one thing to avoid at all costs: the old crank-type flour sieving machine. Such tools are not as load-bearing as large filters. They cannot filter anything except dry ingredients such as flour, and become difficult to clean, and moving parts are easily stuck. As Matt Lewis said, “They are dirty, silly, and they are really unnecessary equipment in your kitchen.”
This bench-top scraper has a comfortable, gripping handle, and the size is engraved on the blade, which will not fade over time.
You will find bench spatulas in every professional kitchen. They are suitable for everything from trimming rolled dough to scooping chopped nuts to flour for cutting butter into pie crusts-even just scraping the surface. For general home baking and cooking, a bench-top spatula may become a daily tool you never thought of. When you bake biscuits, the desktop scraper can easily complete all the above tasks, and it is very suitable for picking up the cut biscuits and transferring them to the baking tray. Rose Levy Beranbaum also pointed out that you can use it to push the icing to the tip of the piping bag by lowering the bag and gently scraping it off the outside (be careful not to tear the bag).
For most applications, we recommend the OXO Good Grips stainless steel multi-purpose scraper and shredder, which is the first choice of The Kitchn. Cook’s Illustrated complained that this model is too boring, but at the time of writing, its Amazon rating is very close to five stars. OXO has the measured value engraved on the blade. Therefore, compared to Cook’s Illustrated’s second choice, Norpro Grip-EZ Chopper/Scraper (with printed measurements), OXO has a mark that will not fade. Cook’s Illustrated recommends the Dexter-Russell Sani-Safe Dough Cutter/Scraper as the first choice because it is sharper than most models, and the flat handle of this bench-top spatula makes it easier to wedge under the rolled dough. But Dexter-Russell is not marked with inches. At the time of this writing, OXO is also a few dollars cheaper than Dexter-Russell, and the desktop scraper, although useful, is not a tool you should spend a lot of money on.
When you are not cooking, you will find that the bench scraper has various other uses. It is perfect for quickly clearing the counter because it can easily scrape crumbs or sticky cookie dough. Epicurious Food Director Rhoda Boone recommends using a bench spatula to crush garlic cloves or boil potatoes, and points out that it can cut pasta dough like pastry dough. The kitchen likes to use this tool to slice lasagna and casseroles.
You won’t see a wide variety of bench-top scrapers there, but you should look for a blade that is thick enough to resist bending and sharp enough to actually cut things. The inch size engraved on the blade is not necessary, but it is very useful, not only for cutting uniformly sized dough, but also, as Epicurious pointed out, for cutting meat and vegetables to the right size. A comfortable, gripping handle is also a benefit, because, as The Kitchn pointed out, when you cook, your hands “are often sticky or greasy.”
This tapered pin rolls the dough more efficiently than the handle pin, is suitable for rolling pies and biscuits, and is still the easiest to clean. In addition, it is beautiful and strong enough to last a lifetime.
Without a rolling pin, you cannot make cut biscuits. In a pinch, you can use a wine bottle instead, but it will be more difficult to achieve a uniform thickness. If you want to roll out a lot of dough, things can quickly become frustrating. If you already have a rolling pin you like, you don’t have to worry about getting a better rolling pin: the best rolling pin is the one you feel comfortable with. However, if you find yourself struggling with dough sticking or cracking, using difficult-to-handle pins, or handling handle pins that rotate in place instead of smoothly rolling on the surface, it may be time to upgrade.
After nearly 20 hours of research and a dozen conversations with professional and amateur bakers and chefs, we tested (as well as a novice baker and a 10-year-old child) 12 rolling pins carefully selected on three types of dough, as Our guide to the best rolling pin. The timeless maple whetstone wooden French rolling pin proved to be an excellent tool and great value.
The hand-turned grindstone, a tapered French pin, is not only better to use than the handle version, but also better than mass-produced pins of similar shape (and the cost is only a small part of other hand-turned pins). Its long and tapered shape makes it easy to rotate, which makes it perfect for round crusts for pie rolling and more oval shapes for biscuit rolling. The hard maple surface is smoother than the surface of the basic mass-produced rolling pin, which prevents the dough from sticking and makes the rolling pin easier to clean. It is also the heaviest tapered pin we have tried, so it is easier to flatten the dough than the narrower and lighter model, but it is not so heavy that it will crack or dent the dough.
If Whetstone is sold out, or if you are a baker who occasionally looks for something cheaper (although we think Whetstone is a bargain compared to other similar hand-cranked models), please consider JK Adams 19-inch wooden rolling, which It also performed well in our tests. Perfectionists might appreciate this pin rolled to a precise thickness because you can use it with spacers (basically color-coded rubber bands of various thicknesses). Our 10-year-old tester also found this pin to be easier to use. However, it does not have a tapered end, and it is not as flexible as a whetstone, so it is a bit awkward to roll out of a round shape. And because the surface of the pin is not as smooth as the surface of our main pick, it requires more flour and cleaning power in our tests.
Natural bristles are more suitable for most pastry tasks, such as holding liquids and brushing off crumbs or flour.
Although cookie baking does not require a pastry brush, it can be used for at least a few tasks. For example, when you roll out the biscuits, the brush can easily sweep off the excess flour so that you won’t get a bite after baking the biscuits. Brushing the biscuits with egg liquid before baking will help to sprinkle on the biscuits. The brush can also help you spread a thin layer of sugar glaze on the baked biscuits.
Old-fashioned bristle brushes generally do a better job of retaining liquids, and they are better at brushing off delicate tasks such as crumbs or flour. On the other hand, silicone pastry brushes are easier to clean, heat-resistant, and will not shed bristles on the biscuits. We reviewed both types of advice from experts and other sources.
A high-quality, inexpensive brush that many pastry professionals use (and Real Simple prefers) is the Ateco Flat Pastry Brush. Cook’s Illustrated said that this model is not suitable for heating or heavy sauce, but this is expected, and it does have a strong structure. If you want a brush that is only used for pastry tasks, this is of course a very cheap option. If you want a silicone brush, Cook’s Illustrated recommends using the OXO Good Grips silicone pastry brush, stating that it provides a soft touch and can hold liquid well.
Among all the knives we tested, these knives have the strongest structure and can cut the cleanest shapes.
Post time: Sep-04-2021