Bread Making & Baking Ingredients

Here is a list of essential baking ingredients that you need to make great tasting homemade bread, banana bread, muffins, etc. Keep these ingredients as a permanent part of your pantry. This will allow you to quickly make a wide array of tasty homemade breads & sweet quick breads in order to feed your hungry family. If you are looking for packaged ingredient kits, please visit Bread Dad’s bread mixes page.

Bread Machine Yeast

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Basic Pantry Items – These are some of the most essential baking & bread making ingredients that you should always keep in your pantry.

• Flour – All purpose flour, bread flour, gluten free flour, whole wheat flour, etc.
• Salt – Sea salt, kosher salt, etc.
• Sugar – Brown sugar, white sugar, confectionary sugar, etc.
• Vegetable Oil – Vegetable oil is shelf stable pantry item. There are many types of vegetable oil including olive oil, canola oil, corn oil, etc. Many people like to use vegetable oil as a lower-cost alternative to butter in baking & bread making.
• Yeast – Instant yeast, active dry yeast, etc.
• Bread Machine Yeast

Leavening Agents (i.e. Yeast & Baking Powder) – You should consider using FRESH leavening agents for all of your recipes. Old/stale ingredients (i.e. yeast or baking soda) can prevent breads & banana breads from rising properly.

• Active Dry Yeast – This yeast is often used for oven-baked breads. It is not a bread machine yeast. Active dry yeast is not an instant yeast as it needs to be preactivated. Generally not used for bread machine recipes.
• Bread Machine Yeast – Fresh bread machine yeast is one of the most essential bread machine ingredients!!! Dead yeast is not positive for bread making. Bread machine yeast is an instant yeast specifically designed for use in bread machines.
• Instant Yeast – This type of yeast does not have to be preactivated before use. Instant yeast can be used for bread machine breads and oven-baked breads.
• Sourdough Starter – This ingredient is used to create delicious sourdough bread. Sourdough starter is a leavening agent. It is a combination of yeast and lactobacillaceae.
• Baking Powder – We try to use aluminum-free baking powder in our recipes.
• Baking Soda – When making banana breads or cookies, you shouldn’t use the old baking soda that has been deodorizing your refrigerator for the past two years. You need to use new/fresh baking soda. If you use old baking soda, you are more likely to find small hard clumps of bitter baking soda in your baked goods and/or your baked goods will have trouble rising properly.

Flour & Related Ingredients – Flour is one of the most essential baking ingredients. Always keep extra flour in your pantry. Updated

• All-Purpose Flour – All-purpose flour is commonly used for making cakes, cookies, etc.
• Almond Flour
• Bran – Bran is an easy way to add fiber & roughage to your bread.
• Bread Flour – Bread flour is usually the best flour to use for bread making. All purpose flour is okay for breads but it is used more for other baked goods.
• Buckwheat Flour
• Chia (Ground) – Ground chia is often used to add extra fiber to baked goods.
• Coconut Flour
• Cornmeal – You can’t make delicious bread machine cornbread without cornmeal!
• Flaxseed (Ground) – Ground flaxseed is often used to add extra fiber to baked goods. There are 2 main types of flaxseed; brown flaxseed and golden flaxseed.
• Gluten Free Flour
• Multigrain – This product is made of tiny chopped seeds & grains and is used to make our oven baked multigrain bread and bread machine multigrain bread.
• Organic Flour
• Potato Flour
• Rice Flour
• Rye Flour – Perfect for making rye bread sandwiches (i.e. Reuben sandwiches).
• Self Rising Flour – Self rising flour already contains baking powder.
• Vital Wheat Gluten – Often added to provide extra gluten to low gluten flours.
• Whole Wheat Flour

Oats & Oatmeal – Updated

• Old Fashion Oatmeal – This adds large oat “flakes” to bread recipes, etc. Oat flakes are used to make oatmeal bread, etc.
• One Minute Oatmeal
• Rolled Oats
• Steel Cut Oats

Fruit (Dried) – Dried fruit is used in many different recipes such as cranberry bread, bread machine cinnamon raisin bread, etc. Updated

• Apples
• Apricots
• Banana Chips
• Blueberries
• Cherries
• Cranberries
• Dates
• Figs
• Golden Raisins
• Mangoes
• Oranges
• Pears
• Pineapples
• Prunes
• Raisins
• Strawberries

Canned Fruit – Updated

• Pumpkin Puree – Pumpkin puree tends to be just a blend of pumpkin and/or summer squash. It usually does not have added sugar & spices.
• Pumpkin Pie Mix – Canned pumpkin pie mix is different from pumpkin puree as pumpkin pie mix has added spices & sugar.
• Related – Pumpkin Pie Spice – This bottled spice mixture is combined often with pumpkin puree to make pumpkin pies, pumpkin breads, pumpkin muffins, etc.

Chocolate & Related Ingredients – Chocolate is used in so many delicious recipes such as our M&M chocolate chip cookies, chocolate chip banana bread, etc. Updated

• Baking Cocoa – Baking cocoa is often used to add a “chocolaty” color & flavor to cakes & cookies.
• Butterscotch Chips – Butterscotch chips are essential for recipes such as butterscotch banana bread, butterscotch chocolate chip cookies, etc.
• Caramel Chips
• Chocolate Chunks – Larger bits of chocolate.
• Dark Chocolate Chips
• Milk Chocolate Chips
• Mini Chocolate Chips – Smaller chocolate chips that we used to top our chocolate chip banana muffins.
• M&M®s
• Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
• White Chocolate Chips

Nuts & Related Ingredients – Used to make banana nut bread, etc. Updated.

• Sliced Almonds
• Cashews
• Chopped Peanuts
• Chopped Pecans
• Chopped Walnuts

Sugar & Related Ingredients – Updated

• Brown Sugar – Light or dark brown sugar.
• Cane Sugar
• Coconut Sugar
• Confectioners Sugar – Powdered sugar
• Honey
• Molasses – People love or hate the flavor of molasses. We like it (in moderation) and molasses provides your bread with a great brown color.
• Monk Fruit Sugar
• Sanding Sugar – Different colored sugar. Used in baking.
• Turbinado Sugar – Large crystal brown sugar
• White Granulated Sugar – Probably the most used sugar in baking.

Milk & Related Ingredients

• Almond Milk
• Buttermilk Powder – Make buttermilk at home with buttermilk powder. Great pantry item. Otherwise, you might have to run to the store to buy liquid buttermilk (and liquid buttermilk is often hard to find these days).
• Instant Milk – Instant milk powder is a good backup in case you run out of milk in the refrigerator… while making a recipe!! 🙂
• Milk – Dairy milk (cow milk).
• Oat Milk
• Rice Milk
• Soy Milk Powder – A non-dairy alternative to cow’s milk.

Oil (Vegetable)

• Canola Oil
• Corn Oil
• Olive Oil
• Vegetable Oil

Salt – Updated

• Coarse Salt
• Himalayan Pink Salt
• Iodized Salt
• Kosher Salt
• Salt Substitutes
• Sea Salt

Spices

• Allspice
• Black Pepper
• Chives – We grow our own chives in our backyard for a truly natural & organic ingredient. Of course, if you want the easy route, there are dried chives too. 🙂
• Cinnamon
• Everything Bagel Mix – Perfect for making homemade “everything” bagels.
• Garlic Flakes
• Garlic Powder
• Ginger – If there isn’t any ginger then there can’t be any gingerbread!!
• Italian Seasonings – This is an essential spice for Italian Herb Bread. It is a mix of spices such as oregano, sage, rosemary and thyme.
• Nutmeg
• Onion Flakes
• Onion Powder
• Oregano
• Pumpkin Pie Spice
• Red Pepper Flakes – If you want to add a little zing to your bread.
• Rosemary – Rosemary is a very tasty herb used for making rosemary breads or Italian style breads.
• Spice Racks with Spices – Racks full of commonly used spices.
• Vanilla Extract – Vanilla extract is used in many recipes (such as banana breads and cookies).
• White Pepper