Scale

If you want to become a great baker, this is the most important piece of equipment you can buy. You can find a decent digital scale at any kitchen store or online for fifteen or twenty dollars. Make sure you get one that goes easily from pounds to grams, because if you are going to weigh your ingredients, you should weigh in grams and kilograms, rather than ounces and pounds. The metric system is much easier to work with. It’s straight forward, it allows you to scale recipes up and down with ease, and you avoid confusion with measurements such as “21 ounces,” which you would have to convert in your head to “1 pound, 5 ounces.” In the metric system, conversions from grams to kilograms only require moving a decimal point. Also, make sure that the scale has a tare function, which allows you to zero out the scale with each new ingredient you put on it.