In addition to giving you stellar food, I also want to ensure you have the most useful and appropriate tools for cooking & baking. Good technique will take you a long way, but good equipment will make up for any technique shortcomings. The video below outlines my surprising recommendations for baking and roasting. It's an excerpt from my Cooking Essentials video course.

My recommendations for the baking pans you'll use the most. An exerpt from my Cooking Essentials video course availabe at jennagedwards.com/kitchenfundamentals Suggest content for my next video: http://www.jennagedwards.com/requests Subscribe to this channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/jennagedwards Connect with me! LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jennagedwards Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/jennagedwards Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jennagedwards I'm Jenna Edwards, a homecooking expert and certified Integrative Nutrition Health Coach.

For baked goods like breads, get yourself a ceramic loaf pan. Metals ones are OK, but I've had the best experiences with ceramic baking my breads evenly and releasing loaves once they're cooled. There’s nothing worse than trying to dump your hot loaf of bread out of the pan so it can cool and half of it sticking to the pan.

If you suspect you'll bake cakes, get three spring form pans. Typically, you’d be told to get general 8 inch round pans. Frankly, I'm not yet at a place in my life where I’m polishing off a large cake. SO, I found small cake pans, about 4 inches in diameter. Now I bake little goodies for myself or as a thank you for friends & I bake so much more often now. A small cake is super cute and much more welcome than a massive one.

I make a full recipe of batter and freeze what I don't use in small portions. One regular cake recipe can make at least three, if not four, two layer cakes. All you have to do is thaw the batter and bake it. No time spent on whipping up the batter over and over again!

So, even though smaller cake or tart pans may seem like a specialty, I find that I have more use for them than the larger sizes. This is a personal choice, depending on how much you like to bake and how often you think you'll entertain large groups. If that’s not in your foreseeable future, go with the smaller pans.

Speaking of entertaining, let's briefly touch on a roasting pan. It's great for large chunks of meat like lamb or beef or whole turkeys. Not many of us frequently roast that kind of meat, so you'll need this only if you expect to roast often. Otherwise, this is a piece that can wait until you really NEED it. If ever. There are so many ways to make really good meat dishes, so you may never need a roasting pan.