Getting Organized For Baking Season

If my Pinterest feed is any indication, everyone is in fall baking mode! I’m so ready to start baking again – I’ve tried to keep the oven off as much as possible this summer and have missed baking so much!

Before you preheat your oven to 350, take a few minutes to get organized! Here are two things that will make the baking process so much easier:

Corral all baking ingredients in a container.

I store flour and sugar in canisters, but everything else lives in this wire basket. When I get ready to bake, I set the basket on the counter near where I’m working. It saves me a lot of trips back and forth across the kitchen. If you have a large kitchen, this will be a huge time saver! It also keeps the counter from getting cluttered with all those things while you’re baking. Here’s what I keep in my basket:

• Confectioner’s Sugar
• Brown Sugar
• Cocoa
• Baking Powder
• Chocolate Chips (I have to bury these in the basket so Paul doesn’t eat them!)
• Nuts
• Vanilla
• Salt

You’ll start seeing sales and coupons for things needed for baking very soon. From now through the Christmas season is the best time to stock up on these things! I also like to pick up baking staples at Aldi – they have the lowest everyday prices for all that stuff. 

Re-stock and re-organize your spices.

It’s always a good idea to periodically take inventory of your spices, throw away the ones that have expired and re-stock what you need. I have a SpiceStack from Bed Bath & Beyond (wedding gift!) that fits perfectly in a narrow cabinet. It came with pre-printed labels, but they got dirty over the years and needed to be replaced. I wish I had some of those removable labels by Martha Stewart, but my Target dollar spot labels worked just fine for this project! I will add more labels when I fill the empty sections with other spices. My mom keeps her spices on a lazy susan inside her pantry, and that’s a great way to quickly find what you need as well.

I also buy most of my spices at Aldi – they are $1! You can also find them at Dollar General or Big Lots (look there for harder to find spices) at a great price. 

Are you ready for baking season?