The inventory of the beginner pastry chef: a list and recommendations of experts

To get pastry masterpieces, for most recipes is not enough only, bowls, spoons and forms for baking. Even a novice pastry chef should have a fairly diverse set of tools. You'll need appliances, utensils suitable for different tasks, and a few specialized items.

Inventory of the beginner pastry chef

The list of basic accessories and tools for a pastry chef is a minimum set:

• Electronic scales are needed to accurately measure the ingredients according to the recipe. Then the cake or cookies will always turn out the same. If the weight of the products is not accurate, the result of baking will be unexpected.
• Knives to cut the dough.
• A hand mixer for making biscuits, cream. It will be enough for the beginning. If possible, it is worth buying a planetary mixer. It will easily cope with all the tasks, but with a manual machine you will need to learn how to prepare meringue or marshmallows.
• Baking molds made of stainless steel, silicone, glass.
• A silicone baking mat. It is spread out on a baking tray when baking bottomless ring cookies or biscuits. The mold fits snugly on the silicone mat, and the liquid dough hardly ever leaks out.
• A silicone spatula comes in handy when making any kind of pastry. With it you can easily knead dough, distribute cream over the surface of a cake or spoon it onto the sides of a cake.
• A metal scraper is needed to keep the edges of the cake perfectly straight.
• A pastry bag with a round nozzle is needed to make patterns and other cream decorations on cakes and pastries. You will also need nozzles of various diameters and a notched nozzle for filling eclairs with cream.
• A silicone brush for applying icing or buttering the pastry.

Also useful are standard kitchen utensils: rolling pin, boards, bowls, hand whisk, forks. If wooden products are used, it is important that they are not impregnated with onion or vegetable flavor. Otherwise, if you put baking dough on such a surface, it will absorb the smell.

Recommendations of specialists

A few tips about the inventory for the preparation of pastry products:

• You will need an oven with different types of heating, depending on what kind of confectionery to be cooked. Biscuits and muffins are baked in convection mode, while cheesecakes, eclairs, macarons are cooked in up and down air movement mode.
• In order for the cakes to be beautifully shaped, you will need a rotating cake assembly table. It is especially necessary for making biscuits. It is better if the turntable is a professional one. It turns quickly. This will allow you to shape perfectly round cakes.
• Macarons, meringues, and biscuits are best baked on thick, reinforced silicone mats.
• Silicone molds are the easiest to use. The finished product is easy to remove from such an elastic mold.
• An angled pastry spatula or pallet will come in handy for making decorative strokes on the cream, leveling the top of the cake or repositioning it.

It is important to choose high-quality inventory for the preparation of confectionery products. Metal parts should be of stainless steel. Then they will not enter into unwanted chemical reactions with the products. Silicone accessories should not have an unpleasant odor.