Rosie's Pantry

Here is a selection of my favourite baking things that I couldn't do without.

Handy Cake Lifter

This handy cake lifter is a lifesaver for transferring delicate and easily breakable layer cakes. Once you've baked your delicious cake, this stainless steel cake lifter will help you transfer it to a serving plate or tin. Also perfect for retrieving pizzas from the oven. ~Only £3 from Sainsburys!

Stem Ginger

This gorgeously sticky candied ginger is preserved in a sweet syrup and can be used for most obviously ginger cakes, but also chopped finely in biscuits, cakes, fruit pies and other puddings. You can even use the syrup to drizzle over the top of gooey cakes or icecream. I add it to a lot of my cakes to add a bit of heat and extra texture.

Reusable Baking Parchment

This stuff is great. You can use it to bake cookies & biscuits on, or cut it to size to fit in tins. It means that you don't have to wash up your baking trays as often, which helps them to last longer and stay looking new. That, and the non-stick quality of this silicone-coated parchment is better than the paper stuff. You can find these anywhere, I got mine from a pound shop!

Recipe Book Holder

I just hate it when I am trying to bake something and my big fat recipe book keeps shutting in on itself, so I have to get my sticky cake-covered fingers all over my recipe books. This solves that problem, thanks Mum for the awesome Christmas present. My chrome recipe book holder was only a couple of quid from Dunelm! Bargain.

Really Classy Chocolate

For those really special occasions where lots of money deserves splashing on it, the very best cooking chocolate and cocoa powder that I have found is by far Green and Black's Organic Cooking Chocolate range. It completely makes any kind of chocolate cake. You can even buy in bulk from their website for just over £2 a bar. If you're lucky sometimes it's on offer in supermarkets.

Real Vanilla Extract

This is the one you want, none of that nasty fake stuff that comes in a little plastic bottle. This makes all the difference, especially in cupcakes and cookies. It adds a warm depth of flavour that can only be described as vanilleryness. About £5.59 from most supermarkets.

Good Quality Cases

You might be tempted by those cheap pound shop muffin cases but please, don't do it! There is nothing worse than a cupcake that wont come out of it's case. Go for the good stuff and it will pay off. About £0.99 for a pack of 75 from most supermarkets.

Non Stick Bakeware

There's nothing worse than ruining an entire batch of cakes because they wont get off the blooming pan... then subsequently ruining the pan by scouring it to death. So, I like Circulon. I have been using the same ones for years now. They never stick, they always wash well, and the non-stickness hasn't rubbed off yet. Success. You can usually get them in John Lewis. Tins are around £12 each.

Proper Measuring Spoons

Always get the perfect amount of rise in your cakes by using some good measuring spoons. No longer will you have to guess the exact heap steepness on your regular teaspoon! I use John Lewis' own brand spoons at £10, a great stocking filler!

Fudge Chunks

These go great on top of cupcakes, icecream, cookies, pretty much anything. They taste yummy and make everything look delicious and professional. Dr Oetker do them for about £1.69, Waitrose also have a nice range of cook's ingredients.

Lemon Zester

All of the flavour of a lemon is in the zest, not the juice. So whenever a recipe says to add lemon juice... slip in the zest too for some extra zing. If you don't want to grate your knuckles off, get one of these. You can pick one of these up for about £5.

Three Tier Cooling Rack

When making large batches of cookies and cakes you need lots of space to cool everything. This is perfect. £18.99 from Lakeland.

Electronic Scales

Get a perfect result every time by using electronic scales. They are so much handier than mechanical ones as you can simply press a button to reset it to zero every time you add a new ingredient, eliminating the annoying "twisting the dial" or relying on your mental maths skills! Salter do lots of good ones for around £20.

 

Marshmallow Fluff

This stuff tastes great on top of cupcakes mixed into your butter icing. It's also used in American whoopie pies. You can even have it on toast or in pancakes. It's hard to find in shops, but whenever I buy something from Amazon, I add a multipack of marshmallow fluff to my shopping basket (about £7 for 4 tubs).