10 kitchen gadgets that will help you bake the tastiest treats

Thanks to my discovery of The Great British Baking Show a few months ago and a subsequent trip to Paris, I’ve become rather obsessed with baking. And I’m not talking chocolate chip cookies and banana bread (though, those are classics). No, I’m talking pâte à choux, mille-feuille, French macarons, and brioche bread—intense, unnecessarily complicated baked goods that require a lot of patience and emphasis on technique.

Whether you’re trying to conquer obscure European pastries like me or you just want to perfect your favorite cookie recipes, there are several amazing smart products that can help you become a much better baker. You will need these 10 smart items in your kitchen if you’re going to be the next Mary Berry.

1. A smart scale for precise measurements

One of the first things you’ll learn when you step into the world of amateur baking is that the U.S. measurement system is pretty inaccurate. We measure ingredients by volume, when it’s much more precise to measure them by weight. The more precise your measurements, the better the outcome will be. As such, a high-quality scale is essential in any baker’s kitchen.

The Drop Scale is perfect for this, as it will walk you through recipes, helping you measure each addition by weight. Plus, its app will provide ingredient substitutions, a super helpful feature if, say, you’re low on eggs.

Get the Drop Scale on Amazon for $78.99

2. An egg tray that monitors your inventory

It sounds a little crazy, but hear me out. When you bake a lot, you go through ingredients like eggs, flour, and butter so quickly. More than once I’ve been at the grocery store and thought I had plenty of eggs at home, only to get back and realize I have two left.

Enter the Quirky Smart Egg Tray, which lets you pop into your phone and check how many eggs are in your fridge even when you're not home. It’s amazing if you’re bad at making grocery lists—I only wish they had similar products for butter and milk!

Get a Quirky Egg Minder App-Enabled Smart Egg Tray on Amazon for $11.98

3. A Bluetooth thermometer to measure oven temperatures

Many delicate pastries require just-right oven temperatures, and you’ll want a thermometer to double-check that your oven is heating up properly. You can mount the Lavatools Wireless Bluetooth Thermometer on your oven, and it will send real-time temps straight to your phone.

Get a Lavatools Wireless Bluetooth Thermometer on Amazon for $49.99

4. A robot that creates pancake art

You’ve probably seen videos of amazing pancake art on Facebook, and now you can make gallery-worthy pancakes at home, even if you’re not an artist. With the PancakeBot, you design pancake pictures on your computer, then transfer them to the robot, which brings your edible creations to life.

Get a PancakeBot 2.0 Pancake Printer on Amazon for $171.97 (on sale from $300)

5. A smart kettle to get your water temperature just right

When you’re making bread, the water temperature has to be just right to activate the yeast—too hot and it will fry; too cold and it won’t wake up. With the AIMOX Smart Electric Kettle, you can simply pick the temperature you need, turn the kettle on, and walk away. It will send an alert to your smartphone when the water is ready, and then you can get to baking!

Get an AIMOX Smart Wifi Stainless Steel Electric Kettle on Amazon for $99.99

6. A voice-controlled recipe display

Personally, I can see two amazing uses for an Amazon Echo Show when you’re baking. First, it can display your recipe for you, saving you the trouble of waking up your phone every fives minutes when it goes to sleep. Second, you can ask Alexa to do weird conversions, like milliliters to cups, when your hands are covered in dough. Win-win.

Get an Amazon Echo Show for $229.99

7. A sous vide cooker for fancy cake recipes

Sous vide cookers are amazingly versatile, and they can even be used in baking. If you want to make single-serving cakes in canning jars, you can use an Anova Culinary Sous Vide Cooker (our top pick for immersion circulators) and monitor your dessert's progress from your phone. Cool, right?

Get an Anova Culinary Bluetooth Sous Vide Precision Cooker on Amazon for $142

8. A app-controlled scale that will adjust recipes for you

Whenever I’m halving or doubling recipes, I always manage to use the wrong amount of at least one ingredient. Luckily, the Perfect Company Bake Pro Kitchen Scale will automatically adjust your recipe based on the ingredients you have, guiding you through the baking process step by step.

Get a Perfect Company Bake Pro Smart Kitchen Scale on Amazon for $69.37

9. A smart gadget to turn your plants into extracts

Say you’re making lavender macarons (YUM) and you have a garden full of beautiful lavender that you want to use. It’s actually pretty hard to take those fresh plants and incorporate them into your baking—unless you have a device like this. The Source Turbo will take your lavender and turn it into lavender extract in just a few hours, so you can make amazing macarons with fresh garden ingredients.

Get the Source Turbo By ExtractCraft on Amazon for $599

10. An AC controller to keep your kitchen comfortable

It always just so happens that I need to bake birthday cakes on hot, humid days—good luck getting frosting or fondant to cooperate! If you live in a climate where humidity runs rampant, you need an air conditioned kitchen to be a pro baker. The AirPatrol Smart Air Conditioner Controller will be your best friend in these cases, as you can attach it to your existing AC unit and control the temperature via your phone.

Get an AirPatrol Smart Air Conditioner Controller on Amazon for $139

Prices are accurate at the time this article was published, but may change over time.