Second hand shopping for the kitchen - even the celebrities are doing it!

Last Night on Campbell Live, celebrity chef Richard Till talked about "retro" baking utensils.

He had a lot of items that many of us still have and use at home, but he also made a key point - the young presenter didn't even *recognise* a lot of the items that our mothers and grandmothers used every day.

Two of the items discussed last night:


These are a flour sifter (left) and a Gem iron (right). (Watch this space - next week LastPenny will bring you Mum's wonderful Gem recipe. It's not exactly healthy eating, mind, but we all need comfort food, right? *vbg*)

Baking at Home

The point of today's post is twofold. The first key point is that baking at home provides a more cost-effective and often healthier alternative to buying snacks.

By looking out those old recipes (or following LastPenny!) you can keep the family in cakes, biscuits, desserts and many other tasty treats, all without spending a fortune.

Here's the SECOND key point. With the busy, instant focus of life in this new millennium, many of us simply aren't set up to bake at home. We're missing a number of the key items we need to get going. But don't despair! Don't put home baking in the too hard basket, or think it will take a lot of expensive equipment to get going.

So what utensils I need to bake at home?

• First up, you don't need a food processor, blender, or any other fancy electronic equipment. While those are nice to haves, your gran didn't have them, and quite likely your mother started without them too - and they all baked, very successfully.
  
• What you do need are a couple of good heavy tablespoons, a set of measuring spoons, a set of measuring cups, a fork, an egg-whisk, a rolling pin and a measuring cup or bottle with a fitting lid (that you can shake liquid ingredients in).
• If you don't have a rolling pin, a wine bottle or something similar-shaped and reasonably heavy will do the trick.
  
• A sieve or sifter for flour is desirable, but you can live without it.
• A rubber spatula for scraping out bowls is a nice to have.
• A set of kitchen scales is helpful, but you CAN do without it - many recipe books including the Edmonds Cook Book have conversion charts at the front, listing the conversions from weight to volume for common ingredients.
• The final key thing you need, especially if you're a new baker, is a RECIPE BOOK. And I don't mean Jamie Oliver's newest coffee table masterpiece, either. Find your mum's favourite old recipe book - I have one of my mother's grandmothers, that gives the method for regulating the temperature in a wood-burning stove. That's the kind of recipe book you need. In the front of those books are a whole lot of lovely tips for the first-time baker - all about what terms such as "cream the butter and sugar" mean, and advice on really how to rub the butter into the flour. (LastPenny will bring you those in due course, too - but having them at your fingertips is a great idea)
  

Now, don't go off to Farmers and spend a couple of hundred dollars in the kitchen department! The VERY BEST THING about all of those things listed above? You can buy them all at your nearest Salvation Army Op Shop, or at garage sales. All those items together will set you back less than $20.00.

While you're there, pick up the other items you'dd need. These vary depending on what you're intending to cook, but will likely include:

• Cake pans*
• Muffin trays**
• Cookie sheets
• Loaf tins

*TOP TOP: If you have a smallish lasagne pan or a square baking dish, you can use it as a cake pan. Many casseroles will also do double duty.

**TIP: You can buy muffin and cupcake papers at the supermarket, and if you don't have a muffin pan, many muffin or cake doughs will hold their shape in a paper receptacle. The key here is not to overfill the muffin or cake paper.

We'll bring you some top baking recipes and tips over the next week :) Look out for them, and if you've got an old favorite, drop us a line in comments or by using the form on our webpage here, and we'll find your favorite recipe for you! Or, if you have a recipe to share, send it in - we'll include it, with a link to your website or blog.