Fall Baking Aesthetic in a Small Kitchen: Style, Light and Storage
How to build a warm, photogenic fall baking corner in a kitchen with no room for one, using a narrow palette, warm light and storage you will still want in February.
The archive
All guides
Every guide we have written, newest first within each topic. Each one picks a small number of tools and explains why they earn the space, including when they do not.
Fall baking
Fall Baking Essentials: The Tools That Actually Earn Their Space
Fall baking asks more of a kitchen than summer does. The tools that change October results, the ones that make the work pleasant, and what to skip.
Fall Baking Ideas: 12 Bakes and the Kit Each One Actually Needs
Twelve fall bakes ordered by how much equipment they demand, from a one-bowl apple cake to overnight cinnamon rolls and a double crust pie, with the tools each needs.
Fall Baking Spice Shelf: What to Buy Whole, Grind and Throw Out
Warm spices carry the whole flavor of fall baking, and most shelves hold stale ones. Which to replace, which to buy whole, the tools that grind them and where to keep them.
Fall Baking for Pie Season: The Thanksgiving Apple and Pumpkin Kit
Soggy bottoms and shrinking fillings are how apple and pumpkin pies go wrong. The kit and timing that fix both, from a fall practice pie to Thanksgiving Day.
Baking essentials
Home Baking Essentials as Gifts: What to Buy Someone Who Bakes
Gifts for bakers, worked out from the baker's side: the upgrades they will not buy themselves, the consumables they will finish, stocking stuffers, and what ends up in a drawer.
Home Baking Essentials: The Complete Starter Checklist
The home baking essentials a new baker genuinely needs, in the order worth buying them, with the things most starter lists include that you can safely ignore.
Sourdough Tools: What You Need, What Helps and What to Skip
The sourdough tools that matter, starting with the one real piece of equipment, a heavy lidded pot: which Dutch oven suits which baker, and what to skip.
Coffee bar
Coffee Bar Ideas for a Small Kitchen Counter
How to build a coffee station in two feet of counter, in the order that actually matters, without giving up the space you cook on.
Espresso Setup at Home: Making It Fit a Small Counter
Espresso needs more space than the machine dimensions suggest. What the footprint really is, what to buy in what order, and when a smaller answer is the better one.
Storage and pantry
Small Kitchen Storage Ideas: Where the Space Actually Is
Small kitchens are rarely short of space. They are short of reachable space. Where the unused volume hides, what to put in it, and what no organizer will fix.
Holiday baking
Christmas Cookies: Baking Tools for Every Recipe on the List
The batch-baking kit for a December of Christmas cookie recipes: two sheet pans in rotation, a scoop, racks, a scale, a pin and cutters, and an honest word on stand mixers.
Christmas Cookies Decorated With Royal Icing: What You Need
The royal icing kit for decorated Christmas cookies in simple shapes: piping tips and bags, a mixer for the icing, cutters, and somewhere flat to dry.
Gingerbread House From Scratch: Tools That Keep the Walls Standing
A gingerbread house from scratch is a weekend project. These are the tools for even panels, square walls and royal icing that holds, plus a pan for bakers who would rather not build.
Hot Chocolate Bar Ideas: How to Set One Up on a Small Counter
A hot chocolate bar for a Christmas party or a quiet December: how to keep a batch hot, store the toppings and fit the whole setup on a small counter.