7 Cheap Baking Staples I Started Buying After Working as a Pastry Chef

Ever since Santa brought me an Easy Bake Oven when I was 7, I have loved to bake. Culinary school and then my jobs as a pastry chef, wedding cake maker, and teacher at Bob’s Red Mill cemented my love of all things baking. I learned a lot during my years in restaurants and bakeries, like how to get every cent out of your eggs or use the tare button on your scale to make baking so much easier. 

One of the most important things I learned is how to shop like a pastry chef. Here are a few of the ingredients that ensure delicious results, make life easier, and will help you save money in the long run. 

Pro bakers don’t mess around with cutting pieces of parchment from a roll every time they need to line a baking sheet — they buy precut parchment sheets. They’re cheap (nine cents or less per sheet), they make lining baking sheets a breeze, and they never curl or roll up on the edges like rolls of parchment do. Be sure to buy half sheet pan liners to line your standard 16 1/2 x 11 1/2 baking sheets. 

Buy: Baker’s Lane Half Sheet Pan Liner, $9.99 for 100 sheets at WebstaurantStore 

I worked for a pastry chef who was famed for his chocolate chip cookies, cinnamon rolls, and toffee apple cake. His secret? He used dark brown sugar instead of light brown sugar in most recipes. It’s got more molasses in it, so it gives cakes and frostings a more pronounced caramely flavor and makes cookies just a little chewier and denser. 

Because it’s higher in moisture, it tends to clump quicker, so keep it in a tightly sealed bag. It’s available in the baking aisle of grocery stores right next to light brown sugar. 

Find it in stores: C and H Dark Brown Sugar, $2.99 for 1 pound 

Buttermilk adds tenderness and tangy flavor to biscuits, banana bread, and pancakes. The acid also helps activate baking powder, so it gives lift too. Buttermilk is also perishable, and if you don’t bake very frequently it will go down the drain before the “use by” date. 

Enter: buttermilk powder, which keeps in the pantry for ages and can be reconstituted whenever you need it. Note: It’s not the best substitute for ranch dressing flavor-wise, but for baking it’s the bomb. 

Buy: Saco Pantry Cultured Buttermilk Blend , $4.48 for 12 ounces at Walmart 

One of my favorite Christmas-time treats is panforte, a rich nut and fruit confection I learned to make while working in Tuscany. The chef used Vietnamese cinnamon (sometimes called Saigon cinnamon) to give her panforte an incredible aroma and strong cinnamon flavor. It’s so punchy that I can reduce the amount in recipes by about a third, so it’s not actually as pricey as it seems. 

My gingersnaps, gingerbread, and cinnamon rolls are so much better — it’s Christmas in a jar. 

Buy: Vietnamese Cinnamon, $6.29 for 0.7 ounces at Penzey’s

I discovered this nonstick cooking spray when I had a wedding cake gig. This spray contains a bit of wheat starch, so the spray is thick and fluffy and coats evenly — it’s like greasing and flouring your pan all in one. Cakes, muffins, and tricky Bundt bakes come right out of the pan with zero sticking or cracking. I love that even after repeated use, it doesn’t gum up my cake pans like some other grocery store brands do. 

Buy: Bak-Klene All Purpose Release Spray, $25.90 for 3 (14-ounce) cans at Amazon

Butter is one of the most important tools in the pastry chef’s kit, and when you skimp on butter it makes a huge difference. Euro-style butter like Kerrygold comes from grass-fed cows, so the flavor is richer (hello, buttercream frosting!) and it has a higher fat content. I find that it makes pastry and pie dough easier to work with. I watch for sales at the grocery store or Costco, and stash the bulk blocks in the freezer. 

Buy: Kerrygold Irish Unsalted Butter, $4.84 for 8 ounces at Walmart

Here’s a trick I learned from my Kyoto-based baking instructor pal, Kei Yamaguchi: Always have white (shiro) miso on hand for baking. This mild, golden fermented soybean paste is the base for the miso soup they serve at sushi restaurants, but its sweet flavor is right at home in the pastry kitchen, too. Just a tablespoon or two of white miso in cookie dough, apple crisp, vanilla ice cream base, or caramel sauce (or just about anything else) is a sweet-salty game-changer. Look for refrigerated, domestically made miso for the thriftiest and tastiest brands.  

Buy: Cold Mountain White Miso, $4.79 for 14 ounces at Sprouts Farmers Market

Are you a pastry chef with a savvy baking tip to share? Tell us about it in the comments below.