A graphic of baking equipment including a mixer, scales, utensils, oven gloves, rolling pin, jug, bowl and jars
Episode 105 – Baking Equipment

In this episode Lesley and Ingrid discuss all things baking! They talk about how to organise and arrange your food and non-food baking equipment.
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Transcript of this podcast episode
Intro  0:07  
Welcome to today's episode of The declutter hub podcast, your channel for super easy, no nonsense advice on how to declutter and organise your home. Please welcome your host professional organisers, Ingrid Jansen, and Lesley Spellman.

Ingrid  0:32  
Hello, and welcome listeners to Episode 105 of the declutter hub Podcast. I'm Ingrid. And I'm Lesley. If you have clutter and want to sort it out, this is the show for you. In today's episode, Leslie and I are talking about baking equipment. We had a request from one of our Facebook group members, if we could do a podcast about this topic. So here we go, Leslie. So my first question, did you do and bake banana bread in lockdown?

Lesley  1:03  
No, in actual fact, I'm not gonna lie. You and I are probably the worst people in the world to do a podcast about baking equipment. Because unless I'm wrong, neither of us are bakers. I know. We're going to try oh me because we do have clients that are bakers and so we have an experience of it. But maybe we won't demonstrate the love of baking that a lot of our listeners will have.

Ingrid  1:34  
Yes, I that is I think you're you're kind of hit the nail on the head here. Lesley. I don't think I don't think I've ever been a baker. You know, even when I was young, like my friends were like experimenting in the kitchen and, and baking Dutch apple pies and doing grandmother's cakes. And there's me kind of gone. Yeah, let me give that a try. And I think I'm baking an apple pie three times. And I thought okay, this is a lot of work. I don't know if I want to do this. So I've never really been into baking but I do you like eating cake.

Lesley  2:08  
I think therein lies the problem for me because I've continually been on a perpetual diet since I was about 25. And I know that if I make the cake, I'll eat the cake. So therefore I don't make the cake. But yeah, absolutely. If someone else is baking it for me, then I the cake.

Ingrid  2:25  
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I mean completely off topic last year. But what's your favourite cake? Because I want to know now of course.

Lesley  2:32  
Oh, carrot cake for sure. Carrot Cake.

Ingrid  2:35  
Really? That would be my least favourite cake.

Lesley  2:40  
You know, I think most of it is because of the beautiful topic. You know the icing on a carrot cake. I love that sort of really sweet things. Now I do carrot cakes. My favourite. Definitely.

Ingrid  2:50  
Right. I think listeners I think we found something that literally they actually don't agree upon. It doesn't happen very often. But it actually it does happen sometimes. Now I actually don't like carrot cake. You know what I don't like banana bread either. So I did not make it during lockdown either. But a nice Victoria sponge. That definitely or like a nice piece of freshly baked grandmother's cake or Dutch apple pie. Yeah, definitely making

Lesley  3:14  
me hungry now. Because we're recording a podcast, and you're making me want to go out and buy an entire carrot cake or Victoria sponge I can eat. Right. So what words of wisdom have we got about baking equipment? Ingrid?

Ingrid  3:28  
Well, you're you're absolutely right, Lesley, a lot of people love baking. And they're really good at it as well. And some people, they love it, but they never do it. They've got all this stuff there. But they never get around to it. And some people have all the stuff. But can you think of one day, I'm going to make all these beautiful cakes. And there's quite a lot involved with baking, isn't it? You think, oh, it's just a couple of muffins. But we know from experience, it's a lot more than that, isn't it?

Lesley  4:01  
I think people fall into three categories don't know, for in the baking world there either like you and I were we might have a couple of things that we've got hungover from when we were baking with our children or whatever. And then there are those people, as you very rightly say that like the idea of baking. And I've got a lot of residual equipment knocking around but don't quite ever get around to it. And then you've got people who live, eat and breathe baking who've got lots of equipment, maybe too much, maybe just enough. And so people definitely fall into different categories. And so who are we going to be talking about? Are we going to try and cover everybody today?

Ingrid  4:39  
Yes. Let's see. I think we're going to try and cover all bases here. But let's first then talk about kind of the bits and bobs that knock around in people's kitchens because it's not just the cookbooks, isn't it? It's not just a couple of aprons and a couple of tins. I mean, I actually Google's and I kind of went okay, just to remind myself what kind of big And there was just bachelors and bowls and whisks and thermometers and gutters. And I was like, Oh my gosh, the list was getting a bit endless. And that's just the non food stuff. You know, it's the cooling racks and the rolling pins and and we also have the food itself like the flower and the food colouring and vanilla extract the yeast and the sugar in the powder. And so it's like different things you need to actually do baking in the first place. It's all the equipment, but it's also the food itself, isn't it?

Lesley  5:34  
You know, I would say about it that most baking equipment, whether it's non food or food has got in common is it's pretty much always really awkward shape, isn't it, it's little bottles or cookie cutters are very difficult to store or mixing bowls are kind of okay, because you normally can put those into one another, but awkward looking spatulas or food processors and mixers. And so the kind of awkward and they take quite a lot of space. And so I think the thing is with baking equipment, you have to be super organised, you have to keep it to a minimum, and you have to know that you absolutely are going to use it.

Ingrid  6:09  
Yeah. And also with the food Lesley, then you have to keep a look on those dates at that packaging. I mean, especially flower can go off a little bit sooner than you might expect. And you definitely do not want to have weevils in your in your flower. So that is something you really want to keep an eye on. I mean, if sugar normally doesn't have a date, I think that's one of the only things that doesn't have a date. But everything else does keep dates on. So if you haven't been baking in a long time and actually want to do some again, check those dates on those products before you kind of go all out and have everything ready to go and then find out that your flour has been out of date for like four months.

Lesley  6:49  
Now well, I think that as declutters, then we do tend to spend a lot of time dealt with throwing out old bakery equipment. But the real culprits for me the ones that really cause problems are things like food colouring, and I say, you know, kind of ready made ice and that kind of thing, because they've got quite short lives of them. Now, some people will probably say, actually food cologne is fine. And it'll last for years and years. But I'm always a little bit like, Well, I'm not sure whether I'd be wanting to eat something that was years out of date. And it is quite often years out of date when we find it isn't that

Ingrid  7:21  
yeah, it is especially all and also there's little tubes of icing, you know that were bought like for a birthday cake two years ago, they always kind of get stuck at the back of the cupboard because you don't use them all the time. And then when you get everything out is like I didn't even remember that was there Ingrid? Let's look at that. Oh my gosh, that was his birthday cake that I made four years ago.

Lesley  7:44  
I know. It's awkward, isn't it? It's very awkward. And one thing it definitely with these little awkward things. containerization is definitely key isn't it? Definitely. It's containerized those little bits and bobs of food colouring and I sin and all that kind of stuff. But before we get to the containerization and grid, let's talk about some of the issues then let's call them that people have with baking equipment.

Ingrid  8:09  
I think we first need to chat about realism, Lesley. I mean, if you have a lot of baking equipment, look at yourself in your kitchen, look at your life and go how often do I actually bake cakes? Is this a once a year thing? Is this only a birthday cake once a year? Is this maybe only scones for Christmas? Is this kind of or are you like in your kitchen every week baking another cake trying out a new recipe? Loving all different kinds of cakes and you give it away to other people you bring it to people when you go for coffee. I mean, what's happening in your life here. What you need to look at is is it imbalance does the amount of baking stuff you have make sense to the amount you bake? Of course if you bake more, you will have more stuff. But if you only kind of realise now you're listening to music, you know what I make muffins twice a year with the kids. You probably need a muffin tin and so cupcake cases and that sets so do the to kind of line up with each other. I think that will be my starting point, Lesley.

Lesley  9:21  
Absolutely. I'm I'm not gonna lie Ingrid. I am struggling to get past the scones at Christmas. I'm like, is this just me or is skunked or think you make a Christmas. Did you just randomly throw that in there?

Ingrid  9:37  
I always go I always go home for Christmas. So I don't know we don't have to come through but I thought Why would people bake I thought maybe they have to construct Christmas. scones with Christmas actually do with Christmas? I don't

Lesley  9:49  
think so. I feel like scones is like a summer thing you know, like jam and clotted cream. I don't know. But anyway, if anybody else has scones at Christmas, I can't let Ingrid go by saying things like scones at Christmas. But hey, I'm sure people do have scones at Christmas. But it's more like a Christmas cake maybe not scones. So hey, I'm sorry to pick you up on that, because you're making a very, very sensible point about realism that I'm going to come back to of course, now that I ever picked you up on your

Ingrid  10:19  
baby, I just fancy a high tea going out for a high tip. I've been stuck indoors so long that maybe I just fancy it. And the first thing I want is like, Oh, I would love a scone with some clotted cream and some jam. Maybe that's my ideal day after that the moments, I think.

Lesley  10:37  
Anyway, just going back to your absolutely right, it's all about being realistic, as with anything, so the baking equipment, ultimately, for most people, the reason why we're talking about is it's become a hobby, we don't actually have to bake. So I don't bake and I get away quite easily in my life without baking. So baking for most people becomes a hobby, doesn't it? And so it's about evaluating that hobby and seeing whether the equipment that you've got is serving you well, particularly if you compromise on space. And so if you're struggling for spares, are you giving loads and loads of your very precious cupboard space up to quite awkward, as we've already mentioned, making equipment that you're not using?

Ingrid  11:17  
Yeah, I think so too. Or maybe you've now realised by listening to me and Lesley chatting about this, like, I used to bake a lot, but actually, I don't anymore. And I used to bake with the kids and have now left home. And it's not something that I really fancy doing anymore. So you've got kind of a left over of those times past. But you're right, you're so right, let's see, it's all this awkward, it's bulky, it's always either round, whether it should be square, or it's rectangular, it doesn't fit anywhere properly. And it does eat up cupboard space like crazy. So if you have a lot of baking stuff, maybe that's a really good place to start.

Lesley  12:02  
I mean, if you want to, if you want to store your baking equipment nicely, you have to spread it out over several cupboards is the bottom line, don't you? So ultimately, what happens for most people is that you kind of stuff it in a little bit, because it's very hard to store. I think one of the things that I wanted to mention is, we just love it, because it's cute, isn't it a lot of baking equipment, you know, little flowery things and dotted things. And so there's loads of really lovely, so it's aspirational from that perspective, because it looks so lovely that we can't leave it behind. So when we shop quite often, if we are a baker, that's the kind of thing that we will pick up. And that's where the problems come, we've got someone in our membership at the moment is that but it's also beautiful. And I just want to keep it on that is not unusual, very similar to crafting, isn't it where people can't leave things behind, because there's so beautiful. So that causes problems as well. And so you have to try not to get taken in by the cute sin us of baking. fell down. Yeah, yeah. And I think

Ingrid  13:05  
also, because also many people love it, you can really get nice things as well, not only pretty or cute stuff. But I think people probably who do kind of bake on a regular basis, upgrade their equipment and upgrade their their tins, and they get maybe a better brand, or they get some or they get gifts when people think oh, they love baking, let me go and get them some nice stuff and give them some nice tins and get them some nice, I don't know brushes, so you upgrade your equipment. But in the end, you kind of might go back to the the 110 that is maybe very kind of old and kind of has seen a lot of light. But you know that cake turns out really, really well. If you use that kind of equipment. So if you upgrade, can you let go of some of the stuff that's getting maybe old and falling apart, but you trust to do the job properly.

Lesley  14:01  
I know it's a tough one, isn't it because you know, people who can bake well have got very specific things, as you say, very specific pieces of equipment that absolutely work every time but they don't want to let go off. But those same pieces of equipment might have little bits of rust on them, they might have little bits of caked on food stuff on them. So sometimes it is they don't look great do this or that old and worn, but they're doing the job. So what we do is we try and find something else that is going to do that job just as well. And sometimes it might take several bites of the cherry until you find that perfect piece. It's going to replace that thing that you've had for years and years and years. And that's the problem isn't that

Ingrid  14:45  
it's you mentioned crafting a minute ago and I was just thinking because the people who craft normally have lots of different projects on the go but if you kind of ask them and say okay, but what are you working on at the moment? What do you really still enjoy doing? And then they can say, Oh, I don't knit anymore. I don't crochet anymore. I used to do that. But now I'm doing so and so. And I think with baking, it can possibly be the same thing. They maybe started off with muffins and had every intention of doing a whole, maybe even a small muffin business, and got all of the paraphernalia. But now, they may be have completely changed tack and make other types of cakes, and they don't need all of those muffin tins and all of those things that used to go with that certain type of baking anymore. So I think that's where the realism and the space come in as well. Have a think through what you actually bake.

Lesley  15:40  
You're absolutely right. And with that there are trends in baking as well. So if we go back 10 years, we weren't finding vegan cakes and gluten free cakes and different types of cupcakes. And there's so many different types of cake now. And so the trends will change as well. And what people love to do develops over time, but we have to be it's all about, you know, ultimately, if you've got a huge kitchen with lots of space for your baking equipment, and you feel that you go to that with regularity. There's no reason for you to declutter that. It's when you're having to compromise on space for cups and plates and glasses, and things that you need every day. But baking stuff, that's when there's a problem. Yeah,

Ingrid  16:19  
I think so too, literally. And I think if it is a very important hobby. Normally, of course, hobbies can be put in other parts of the house, right. So you can have a spare spare room where you have a crafting, or you can make maybe a a reading nook in one of your bedrooms upstairs or in your living room. But of course baking has to happen in the kitchen, you need to be close to your sink and to your oven and to your there's not a lot of people who have a whole separate prep kitchen somewhere, you know, and they think back about the episode you did last week with with Selena, where they have like a prep kitchen and a fancy kitchen. I was thinking, wow, this is nice, you know, I know they're going to anybody who's going to prep kitchen. And of course, if you bake a lot, all this stuff hat, you have to have close at hands. So you can't just store it in a completely different part of the house and keep walking back and forth. So you have to do compromising? Yeah,

Lesley  17:23  
I think one of the things that I've seen a couple of times is that if people are known, and they've got a reputation as a baker, then people will ask them to bake multiple cakes for events. And so sometimes people are keeping multiple cake tins for that very reason. Now, in that instance, that's the kind of thing that I would consider, it's considered to be kind of seasonal maybe. And that kind of stuff could then potentially go into a utility room into a different cupboard into a loft into a garage, something like that. It's not ideal to put things like that into a garage because it tends to be damp, and then it's going to rust, but it's something that people can consider to have like an overflow box of baking equipment for those kind of party cakes that you're making.

Ingrid  18:07  
Yes, indeed, point well made, I think. I'm just thinking, my friend Heidi, she's a fantastic cake maker. And she occasionally she makes the most beautiful cakes, but I think she doesn't more really like a hobby, but not all the time. But I mean, she does, she does make the most beautiful cakes. I just I'm a bit jealous. I'm not gonna lie, Lesley, I'm a bit jealous of people who can you know, when you see these pictures, nothing. And they're like, I've made a cake for my daughter's sixth birthday use this beautiful rainbow cake. And I'm like, oh, that's something I'm not good at. Something I'm not good at.

Lesley  18:44  
And I completely agree. I completely agree. I'm never going to be good at it. There's no point in me if and I'm just going to stick to what I know best, which is decluttering, which I'm very good at baking. It's not my thing, but decluttering definitely is. So we've talked then about realism. And I think we've made the point really that you have to be realistic about what you actually do and really take a look and say how often am I using this stuff? We've talked about whether the fact that things are aspirational, so is it how do you know I really really want to spend time baking with my kids and that's why I'm keeping it or I do want to take that up as a hobby at some point. It's also aspirational in terms of we love it because it's cute and lovely. They're just beautiful things out when you have to go into somewhere like Lakeland to have a look around and it's gorgeous. You know, of course he was going to leave that behind if you love it. And we've talked a bit about compromise as well. And I think compromise is really what we're here then as declutters to talk about more, isn't it which is if you want to keep your baking equipment in a really nice orderly way. What are you going to compromise on in the rest of your kitchen?

Ingrid  19:49  
Yes. And I think also if you are doing some decluttering think about where you want to store it in your kitchen. Because if this is a I bake once a month or once you Every quarter, that's that stuff doesn't have to be in a premium space cupboard, it can be put, maybe in a corner cupboard somewhere, or maybe somewhere up high where you can't easily reach it. Because you don't bake very often. If you are a big weekly Baker, then this stuff has to be easily at hand. So it's easy for you to grab it, and it doesn't become a chore just to get the equipment in and out of your kitchen cupboards.

Lesley  20:26  
Yeah, so that compromise might be just Yes, I'm going to keep it but it's going to go high up in and it's not going to go at eye level so that things like that are important as well. But one of the other things that I did want to say briefly about decluttering is I know, I have no expertise as a baker. But one of the things that I've seen with the clients that I've worked with is that people don't like the silicone that was a trend a few years ago. So silicone baking trays definitely came in probably 1015 years ago. And what I see more often than not now is that people are offloading that silicone whether it is baking cases, or whether it is a silicone cake 10 It's not 10 But you know, cake thing I'll take because it's not terrible. It's a silicone baking

Ingrid  21:14  
thing. Mould moulds, oh,

Lesley  21:16  
maybe mould. I don't know. We don't need to know the names of things. Do we just need to know whether they need to be decluttered or not? But yeah, so silica is a lot of people keep hold of that, as well. And then over time, I've not used that silicone for years. So maybe that's something to look at. Or maybe you're a silicon lover, and it might just be the people that I've worked with that are not

Ingrid  21:36  
Alright, the last thing I want to mention is recipes. You might as a baker have recipes that have handed been down through the generations, you might have some favourite things that you've seen online that you've printed, you might use some recipes from a cookbook with desserts where you thought, Oh, that's great. I want to keep that. If you'd like to know more about cookbooks and recipes. We did one of the questions in our 100 podcasts all about decluttering recipes. So do have a listen in if you want to know more about how to do that. Let's leave. That's it for this episode. So thanks everyone for listening. And if you are inspired to take action and have a sort through your baking equipments, please come and share it in our fabulous Facebook group the declutter hub community, we would love to see some before and afters there in about your decluttering projects. If you've enjoyed this episode, please share it with other people maybe your friends or family would love our show to on our show notes page. On our website, you can find all the sharing buttons. And if you want to have more handy tips and advice from us, you can find this in lots of places. We have the Facebook group, we've got a Facebook page we and we are on Instagram, Twitter, as well as at declutter hub and we'd love to see you there. If you'd like to know more about our membership, to have a look on members dot declutter hub.com To find out more. If you don't want to miss the next episode, subscribe to the declutter hop podcast, and it will pop into your notifications each Friday. We've been asking for reviews which have made a huge difference to us. So if you've enjoyed today or any of our other podcasts, we would love you to take a couple of minutes out of your day to leave us a review. Thanks for listening and see you next time.

Outro  23:27  
Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the declutter hub podcast. Check out declutterhub.com for more inspiration. Don't forget to tune in next week.
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