There’s nothing like a clean cooking space, but what about those overflowing cupboards? Our kitchen storage can quickly get disorganized with half-filled flour bags and expired ingredients, making it harder to know what you need to add to your shopping list or whether you have enough left for a complete recipe. Avoid that last minute trip for more brown sugar and take this time at home to tidy up! No one likes reaching for the vanilla only to find a jar of sprinkles tumbling to the floor. Expert baker Emma Duckworth shares four steps to organizing your baking storage.
There’s no easy way to do it other than emptying that drawer/cupboard/shelf. Give the area a good ol’ clean. I guarantee there’s spilled sugar granules, flour grains, and smeared food coloring underneath all the packaging. From there, make a list of everything you already have. You’ll likely be surprised by what’s hiding in the bottom of your drawer. To make life easy, refer to my list of staple ingredients for a baker’s pantry. You can simply tick off everything that you already have, making it easy to see what you need to buy. This will also help you later on when it comes to storage ideas. I have a blackboard in my kitchen that whenever I’m running low on an ingredient I quickly scribble on.
Check use by dates (and/or write them obviously on packaging). Your baking can be affected by using out of date products.
Now we have to organize our ingredients. Dumping them altogether back into your cupboard will only create the same problem. The easiest and most efficient way to organize is by grouping your products together.
You’ll find grabbing your set of ingredients for a recipe much easier like this. I’m all about time saving hacks and this is one of them.
So now you’ve made a list of what ingredients you already have, what you need to buy to top up your staples, and you’ve organized them into groups. Time for a storage plan. Storage is one of the most important factors in how to organize your baking pantry. Choose a clear container that you can decant your ingredients into. Being able to see your ingredients is a sure fire way to quickly view what you are grabbing. You can see the quantity and know when you need to top up.
I live in a rental apartment and cupboard space is low. Baking a lot, I wanted all these ingredients easily accessible, so I asked my landlord if I could put up a couple of long shelves and brackets to hold them. Luckily she said yes. I now store all my baking dry goods in glass clip top jars lined along shelves. The accessibility is fantastic and I can make the shelves look pretty with uniform containers and some trailing plants. Not everyone can fix shelves to the wall, but there are removable options available as well.
Once all your dried goods are in functional jars or storage containers, it’s best to label the jars. You don’t want to be mixing up self rising flour and cornstarch. You might have a disastrous bake on your hands! There are plenty of ways to label your containers, whether it’s handwritten, with a label maker, or printable templates. Get creative!
With these simple steps you can now go away and organize that baking pantry. Above anything else it will help with your productivity in the kitchen so that you can bake like an organized boss.
Read Emma’s full post here!
Be sure to follow @emmaduckworthbakes on Instagram and use #emmaduckworthbakes and #mollymymag to share your creation.
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© 2023 MOLLY MY
Content may contain affiliate links. When you click and shop, we may receive a commission.
