I’m a massive fan of pantry reorganizations and finding a storage solution that work with how people live. With that in mind, Andy and I started troubleshooting a way to finally organize all of our baking supplies. We had ingredients in our general food cupboards, backstock in our utility room pantry, and a bin with specialty tools — which we use a lot during the holidays. In the end, the baking storage solution was surprisingly simple and 100% inspired by Marie Kondo.
The KonMari Method
Marie Kondo’s The KonMari Method emphasizes tidying and reorganization by category. By having our baking supplies and ingredients in so many places, we were not only breaking one of her most effective organizing rules, but we were making ourselves a little frazzled every time we had to go to a different room to grab what we needed. That had to change.
Declutter Items You Don’t Use
While nearly all of our baking supplies “spark joy,” some specialty flour and other ingredients had expired. So, we started by tossing anything that had expired. If you have tools you bought that you never use, this is a great time to offer those to your local Buy Nothing group, sell on eBay, or in the home section of Poshmark. You can also donate items that are in good condition.
Note: It might seem like a hectic time of year to do this, but you’ll be happy you did this declutter. When I did it, it allowed me to inventory my baking supplies and make a note of what I needed – before I needed it.
Assess Your Space
Do you have cabinets that are underutilized? Can you reorganize your pantry to free up a shelf or an entire section? We had a chronically underused cabinet near the stand mixer counter. Over the years, it has held cups, Tupperware, carving knife sets, etc. The cupboard is very tall, so the top shelves were rarely used, and the bottom ones didn’t need to be used as a catch-all. We had our spot!
So, rather than having cups and mugs in that spot, we did some shifting, and they joined the glassware already in another cabinet. Similarly, we pulled the Tupperware that was living in this cabinet and moved it to where some of our baking supplies had lived before. Now we had the space to create a real storage solution for our baking ingredients.
Group Your Supplies Together
As we were decluttering the pantry, we started putting all of our baking supplies together on the kitchen table. This allowed us to create shelves that largely kept like items with like items. Although, we did choose to keep daily use items on the lower shelf, even though that meant dividing up the flour.
Still, I have different types of sugar together. The flour (and the amounts available) are easily visible. The top shelf holds our backstock and rarely used items that will be coming down soon for decorating sugar cookies!
Overall Impression of our Baking Storage Solution
Overall, we’re really happy with the change. We’ve freed up significant space in other cabinets and our pantry. Plus, we now have the ingredients we need for most bakes in one place. We know what we have and what we need. It’s not perfect, but it’s so much better that I wish we had done this reorganization project sooner.
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