First, I have to be completely honest with you. Except for making Christmas cookies, I rarely bake from scratch. (Unless you count cocktails. lol) This means that my baking cupboard is fairly small. But nonetheless, I want it to be organized and easy to access when the mood strikes me. Plus, believe it or not, my son’s occasionally bake and having it labelled and easy navigate cuts down on the fifty million questions by them. Things are also put back where they should be now that I have completed this dollar store baking pantry makeover.
Here is what my baking cupboard looked like before:
Pretty bad right? It was rather embarrassing.
How to start your baking cupboard makeover
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I started by pulling everything out, checking expiry dates and then sorting by size of container each item would need. I decided on large containers for flour and sugar, medium for brown and gold sugar and small containers for baking powder and salt. I wrote down how many of each size I would need.
Know your space
It is important to know the dimensions of your space, so you can maximize the area as best you can. If you have too much stuff, you may have to consider moving your baking supplies to another shelf or bigger cupboard. If you feel like the space is too big, don’t be afraid to downsize to another area. In the end, that will make more room for other things and this is crucial if you have a small kitchen and/or you are cupboard deficient.
Let’s go shopping!
With list in hand, I went to the dollar store. I knew I wanted the largest containers to be plastic and have handles as my baking cupboard is above my microwave. They needed to be light and not be able to hold too much product. Glass plus too much product would make the container way too heavy to lift down with one hand. I didn’t want to have to get a stool and use two hands to take these containers down every time I needed them.
For all the other containers I chose are glass. They would contain less product so combined with the glass, they wouldn’t be too heavy. Plus I do like glass better than plastic for washing.
I chose all my containers to be transparent so I could easily see what was running low at a glance.
When you go shopping for your supplies, look in every section of the dollar store. You will be amazed at how you may find what you need in bakery, plastics and even school supplies. Go through the entire store before you finalize your decision over what containers or tupperware to choose.
The one thing I did splurge on was the clear magazine holder to hold my recipes. I did buy the one inch binder from the dollar store to hold my loose recipes that I have printed from the internet over the years. I did also throw out a lot of recipes books I hadn’t used in years or had never used. Re-organizing your baking cupboard is a great time to declutter.
Label, label, label
Then I made labels for everything. I have tried that hack where you print on regular paper and then use a credit card to press the type into packing tape but it never worked for me. So I picked up these clear address labels by Avery to use. You can also go to their website and choose from a large assortment of templates if you don’t know how to create your own labels.
Here is my baking cupboard now:
I also picked up some new measuring cups, spoons and scissors in red and mounted them to the door with sticky hooks:
I used large containers to store cookie supplies like sprinkles and food colouring too:
What do you think? Inspiring enough to bake? Not yet but I’m ready!