Breadmaking Tools I Love

At Le Cordon Bleu, I remember feeling apprehensive about our first breadmaking (boulangerie) lesson. I especially love the creative aspect of pastry. I thought there couldn’t possibly be any way to make bread as creative as elaborate French desserts.

As it turns out, I couldn’t have been more wrong! I immediately fell in love with breadmaking. I also learned that there are so many ways to make a loaf of bread your own!

Since then, boulangerie has become a regular part of my baking repertoire. While I do love elaborate pastries, there is nothing quite as satisfying as a simple, perfect loaf of bread.

Below are a few of the breadmaking products and ingredients I love. For recipe inspiration, be sure to check out my bread recipes page, too.

To build a top-notch kit for breadmaking, I recommend the following products:

Proofing Basket
A banneton is a woven basket used for proofing (sometimes spelled proving) your bread dough before baking. I don’t always use one—sometimes I just place my loaf directly on the tray to rise—but it’s nice to have as an option. If you’ve seen artisinal loaves of bread with a circular pattern embedded in the dough, it was probably proofed in a banneton.

Kitchen Shears
Kitchen shears (kitchen scissors) are useful for scoring the dough, especially if you want an easier option than creating intricate patterns with a bread lame. They’re also great for quickly cutting long tubes of dough (to make pretzels, buns, etc.) or for cutting slices of pizza.

Bread Lame
When you do want to make more elaborate patterns, a bread lame features a sharp razor blade on a handle, and is ideal for scoring loaves with intricate shapes, patterns, and designs. Be sure to stock up on extra razors, too, as you’ll need to change the blade frequently to maintain a sharp edge.

Rolling Mat
A silicone rolling mat isn’t a necessity, but it protects the countertop and makes cleanup easier. I often cover my countertop with a rolling mat when I’m making bread, and I also use my mat for baking, including rolling pie crusts and puff pastry, and when working with fondant.

Bench Scraper
A plastic bench scraper makes combining ingredients easier. It’s great for adding inclusions (like cheese, peppers, or olives) to the dough, and cutting the dough into even pieces. It’s also handy for cleanup, especially when you need to scrape bits of sticky dough from the bowl, bench (hence the name!), or countertop.

Elastic Food Storage Covers
These plastic food storage covers (which happen to look a whole lot like shower caps, but are food-safe) are an absolute lifesaver. They’ll fit nicely over a bowl or banneton, creating the perfect environment for proofing your dough. And unlike clingfilm/plastic wrap or foil, these can be washed and reused, so they’re better for the environment, too.

Metal Bowl Set
Metal bowls are perfect for mixing bread dough and allowing it to rise. I often use the smaller bowls from my set for holding portioning out inclusions, like cubed cheese and olives.

Yeast
Unless you’re making soda bread or sourdough, yeast is a must for breadmaking! I keep both instant yeast and active dry yeast in the cabinet; these are the two I use most frequently. Fresh yeast is also an option, but it’s difficult fo source, and is highly perishable.

Serrated Knife
The best kind of knife for slicing homemade bread. The jagged, saw-like edge cuts through crusty homemade loaves with ease.

Bread Stencils
I absolutely love using bread stencils to add a decorative element. They come in many shapes, sizes, and patterns, and they’re easy to use. All you need to do is place the stencil on top of the unbaked loaf, use a mesh sieve to lightly dust flour over the top, then carefully peel away the stencil and bake as usual. (Just be sure to use the stencil before baking, not after—flour is not meant to be eaten raw.)

Assorted Salts
Welsh sea salt, coarse sea salt, and kosher salt are all staples in my breadmaking toolkit.

Kitchen Scale
For scaling your dough, a kitchen scale is an absolute. When making multiple loaves or large batches of dinner rolls, use it to weigh each portion of dough to make sure all of your rolls will be the same size.

Olive Oil
I like to keep a basic olive oil on hand, as well as fancier options like garlic oil, basil oil, and herbs de provence oil. These are great for standard loaves of bread and pizza dough (especially for coating your bowl) and are also ideal for focaccia, a.k.a. Italian olive oil bread.

Inclusions
I love a loaf of bread packed with lots of extras! Some of the inclusions I use most often include cubed cheese, pickled jalapeños, sundried tomatoes, roasted red peppers, roasted garlic, olives, raisins, dates, dried fruit, mixed peel, pepitas, and chopped walnuts.

Flour
Another must! Stock up on bread flour, all-purpose flour, and whole wheat flour. You might also want to keep cornmeal or semolina in the pantry for dusting the bench, tray, or banneton.

Seeds
To decorate bread loaves and dinner rolls, I like to keep poppy seeds, caraway seeds, and sesame seeds on hand, as well as a good everything bagel seasoning.

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