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.
Whole Wheat Flour
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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.
- Baking Powder
- Baking Soda
- Flour – Bread flour, all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, rye flour, etc.
- Salt – Sea salt, kosher salt, etc.
- Sugar – Brown sugar, white sugar, confectionary sugar, etc.
- Yeast – Bread machine yeast, active dry yeast, instant yeast, etc.
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 your breads & banana breads from rising properly.
- Baking Powder – We try to use aluminum free baking powder in our recipes.
- Baking Soda – When making banana bread or cookies, you shouldn’t rely on the old baking soda that has been deodorizing your refrigerator for the past two years. You might not get optimal results. 🙂
- Active Dry Yeast – This yeast is often used for oven-baked breads. It is not a bread machine yeast.
- Bread Machine Yeast – New/active bread machine yeast is one of the the most essential bread machine ingredients!!! Dead yeast is not positive for bread making.
- Sourdough Yeast – This type of yeast will help you to create delicious sourdough bread.
Bread Machine Yeast
Butter
- Salted Butter
- Vegan Butter
- Unsalted Butter
- Tip – You can often use vegetable oil to replace butter in many recipes (if you have run out of butter and can’t get to the supermarket).
Chocolate & Related Ingredients – Chocolate is used in so many delicious recipes such as our M&M chocolate chip cookies, chocolate chip banana bread muffins or white chocolate chip cookies. 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
Eggs – Buy organic eggs via your local supermarket. Eggs might not be the best candidates for a company’s free shipping. 🙂
Flour & Related Ingredients – Flour is one of the most essential baking ingredients. Always keep extra flour in your pantry.
- All-Purpose Flour – All-purpose flour is commonly used for used for 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.
- Buckwheat Flour
- Cake Mix – This allows you to make cakes… as well as our world famous cake mix banana bread. 🙂
- Coconut Flour
- Cornmeal – You can’t make delicious sweet cornbread muffins without cornmeal!
- Gluten Free Flour – Our amazing gluten free chocolate chip banana bread uses gluten free flour.
- Multigrain Cereal – This cereal product is used for making multigrain bread.
- Organic Flour
- Potato Flour
- Rice Flour
- Rye Flour – Perfect for making rye bread sandwiches.
- Self Rising Flour – Self rising flour already contains baking powder.
- Whole Wheat Flour – Add some whole wheat fiber to your diet.
Fruit (Dried) – Dried fruit is used in many different recipes such as cranberry bread, golden raisin banana bread, chocolate chip cranberry cookies, etc. Updated
- Apples
- Apricots
- Banana Chips
- Blueberries
- Cherries
- Cranberries
- Dates
- Figs
- Golden Raisins
- Mangoes
- Oranges
- Pears
- Pineapples
- Prunes
- Raisins
- Strawberries
Milk & Related Ingredients
- Instant Milk – Instant milk powder is a good backup in case you run out of milk in the refrigerator… while making a recipe!! 🙂
- Oat Milk
- Organic Milk
- Soy Milk
Mixes – If you don’t want to buy large amounts of ingredients for just a single special dish, you can buy a pre-made baking mix (and thus you won’t have tons of leftover ingredients sitting around).
- Banana Bread Mixes
- Biscuit Mixes
- Bread Mixes
- Brownie Mixes
- Cake Mixes
- Cookie Mixes
- Muffin Mixes
- Quick Bread Mixes
Nuts & Related Ingredients
- Almonds
- Almond Butter
- Cashews
- Cashew Butter
- Hazelnuts
- Hazelnut Butter
- Nutella
- Peanuts
- Peanut Butter
- Pecans
- Pecan Butter
- Sunflower Butter
- Walnuts
- Walnut Butter
Oats & Oatmeal
- Old Fashion Oatmeal – This adds large oat “flakes” to bread recipes, etc . Oat flakes are used to make oatmeal banana bread, oatmeal bread, etc.
- One Minute Oatmeal
- Organic Oats
Oil (Vegetable)
Quick Bread Ingredients – These ingredients will help you to make applesauce bread, pumpkin bread, etc.
- Applesauce
- Pumpkin Puree – Essential for making bread machine pumpkin bread, oven-baked pumpkin cranberry bread, etc.
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
- 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 Powder
- Oregano
- 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.
- Vanilla Extract – Vanilla extract is used in many recipes (such as banana breads and cookies).
- White Pepper
Sugar & Related Ingredients
- Brown Sugar – Light or dark brown sugar.
- Sugar Cane
- Molasses – People love or hate the flavor of molasses. We like it (in moderation) and molasses provides your bread with a great brown color.
- Turbinado Sugar – Large crystal brown sugar
- White Granulated Sugar
Other Essential Baking Ingredients
- Potato Flakes (Instant Mashed Potato) – Potato flakes are often used to make fluffy potato bread.
- Cheese
- American Cheese
- Cheddar Cheese
- Mozzarella Cheese
- Pepper Jack Cheese
- Swiss Cheese
- Other Cheeses (i.e. Gouda & Feta)
Essential Kitchen Equipment
Herb Seeds – Grow your own herbs for the freshest bread recipe ingredients! You can grow many of these herbs in pots on your window sill.