Must-have bakeware for the kitchen

1 Cake racks Cake racks are essential tools for cooling cakes and cookies. Buy at least one large cake rack (the size of a sheet pan) for flipping out sheet cakes. Round cake racks are convenient for individual round cakes.

2 Copper bowls Egg whites rise better when beaten in copper. This leaves two choices--a copper bowl designed for beating by hand (make sure you buy a big one so there’s plenty of room to whisk) or a copper insert for your stand mixer. Be sure to clean the copper thoroughly with salt and vinegar before you use it each time. Make sure there is no trace of fat adhering to the bowl.

3 Food processor A food processor is indispensable for grinding nuts and for pureeing solid mixtures. It is also useful for making most dough.

4 Molds and ramekins Baking molds and ramekins are used for tarts and tartlets, babas and savarins, brioche, madeleines, custards, soufflés, and more. For tarts, cookies, and cakes, non-stick or silicone molds are best. If you’re stuck with traditional molds--especially if you are making madeleines or financiers, which love to stick--butter the molds, refrigerate them, butter them again, and then flour them.

5 Parchment paper Almost indispensable in baking, parchment paper is now available at most supermarkets. If you can’t find it, substitute waxed paper (which will leave traces of harmless wax on foods), but not aluminum foil, which will leave specks of metal and may tear.

6 Pastry bags and tips Buy large pastry bags so you can pipe plenty of mixture, such as the batter for a large cake. Buy an assortment of pastry bag tips, both fluted and plain.

7 Pastry scrapers and bench scrapers Bench scrapers (also called pastry scrapers and dough cutters) are typically metal, though some are made of plastic. They are versatile tools that can be used to scrape together ingredients on a work surface, transfer ingredients from work surface to a bowl or pan, and cut dough without wrecking its structure, among other things. Some plastic pastry scrapers have one straight and one rounded edge. This allows you to use them on both the work surface and inside bowls for folding mixtures.

8 Pastry cutters These old fashioned gadgets--essentially a series of stiff wires attached to a handle--are handy for cutting cubes of cold butter into flour when you’re working in a bowl. When working directly on the work surface, use a pastry scraper. When you are mixing dough in a stand mixer or food processor, the machine does the work.