My Baking Station

I created my “baking station” several years ago when I set out to organize my entire kitchen. I wanted to make it more functional and user friendly.

In her book Toni Hammersley suggests creating a “baking station.” I loved this idea and it became my number one priority as I went about cleaning and organizing.

I knew I had the perfect spot for my baking station, the only problem was finding new homes for the existing contents of these drawers. The top drawer housed all my washcloths, dishtowels and hot pads. I had another drawer on the opposite side of the sink but it was much smaller. I started by getting rid of several stained washcloths and dishtowels. Then I decided to store all holiday dishtowels and hot pads in my holiday totes downstairs. Before I knew it my rags and towels fit in this drawer with room to spare.

Now, what to do with the hot pads? In an effort to make the entire kitchen more user friendly and take up less space, I used Command Hooks to hang the hot pads inside a couple of cupboards.

I put two hot pads in the cupboard right above my oven, and two in the cupboard right below my stove. They are super handy I have loved having them there!

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The items in the other two pullouts were dispersed in similar fashion. I already stored mixing bowls in one of them so not much changed there. And the flour and sugar swapped places with some small appliances.

My goal was to have everything I needed to make a batch of Chocolate Chip cookies within arms reach. (The exception being the wet ingredients.)

The first drawer houses all the small ingredients. I wasn’t sure about these OXO containers. I had always just stored my things in their original containers. I went ahead and tried it because I loved how they looked. I was sold with the first batch of cookies!

They are air tight which helps keep the ingredients fresh. When you push down on the circle in the middle it releases the seal and pops up to give you a handle. You can lift the lid with one hand, scoop your ingredient with the other, then replace the lid. If keeping track of expiration dates worries you, they can be written on the bottom with a dry erase marker.

The top pullout inside the cupboard houses larger ingredients. I realize the paint buckets aren’t very attractive, but I go through sugar and flour extremely fast. I wanted the largest container I could get that fit in this space and this is what I found. I love the OXO containers for my brown sugar. There is nothing worse than going to make a yummy treat and realizing the brown sugar is hard. Am I right?

The bottom pullout holds my hand mixer, mixing bowls and my Bosch.

My oil is in the lazy-susan to the left, the Vanilla and cookbooks are close by in an upper cupboard. And just like that, everything within arms reach!!!

Links to the sizes of containers I’ve used are below their pictures. However, I bought most of my containers much cheaper from TJ Maxx, Home Goods and Ross. It took me a long time to collect the sizes I wanted, but I remained patient. In the end, I only paid full price for a handful of containers in my entire kitchen.

Does your kitchen have a space for a Baking Station? Is it something that interests you? I feel the need to share the downside to having such a space in your kitchen. The downside is that when baking is simplified as much as it is with a Baking Station, much more baking takes place. Therefore, many more sweets are consumed. 😉