Favorite piece of 'cannot do without' kitchen equiptment - Favorite mixer

Seems like we did this recently. Maybe on another group.

I use a Kitchen Aid 600 Professional mixer with dough hook. Tried the food processor with plastic dough blade, but it seemed too hard on the dough.

I use a Roll 'N Pat plastic mat that reduces dough sticking to a minimum.

Bowl scraper and baker's scraper.

Large pottery bowl for rising, although often I just use the bowl from the mixer.

I have assorted bannetons and baskets and a linen couche.

I bought and enjoy very much the La Cloche pottery bakers, round and long loaf shapes. No spraying for steam required in these!

10 lb plastic containers for flours except the All-Purpose. That gets a 20 lb one.

Assorted sizes of the elastic band bowl covers that look like a shower cap. Great for covering fermenting doughs as well as the cut end of loaves.

A wire rack for cooling the loaves that expands to 3-times its length.

Measuring cups, spoons, of course, and a good digital scale that reads in either oz or grams.

Digital instant read thermometer to test for doneness of the loaves.

I am trying out one of the remote sensor types that let me insert the probe at the beginning of cooking and it signals me, remotely, when the desired temp is reached.

A 3/4" Fibrament baking stone.

Various crocks, jars for sour doughs, poolishes, sponges, levains, etc.

Clear lucite container for yeast in the refrigerator.

Various small plastic containers for dough enhancers, rye additives, and other things I keep in the freezer.

A long thin board, about 5"X15" for dough flipping.

Perforated metal form for French Bread. Pottery form for same.

Dough whip from King Arthur flour.

Many, many floursack kitchen towels.

Oh yes. Almost forgot. My biggest splurge:

I bought 6 DVD's from Daniel's Rustic Bread that cover techniques for all sorts of breads. Bought one from King Arthur flour that is good. The splurge was a portable DVD player that permits me to watch, and pause at will, the progress of the demonstraton as I follow him through the bread-making process.

That's about it although I must have more since the two drawers of my island table are overflowing with gadgets.

On this site. Here's a link.

We've made two long-distance moves in two years, with one more short move coming up soon (I hope).  Throughout this time, we've kept as much as possible in moving boxes to make the moves easier.  I take out only what I absolutely need.  Formerly, I used all kinds of kitchen gadgets, now hardly any.  Used to make bread only in mixer or food processor, now I do it by hand.  The funny part -- my bread is turning out much better than it ever has, and all I use is a big bowl and a dough whisk and a bench scraper!  That said, the first thing I unpacked was my digital scale. It's amazingly accurate and with it I get consistent results in all my baking.  So if you want a mixer or food processor for Xmas, hide this message.  But if you want a digital scale, show this message to Santa.   ;)

Although I am relatively new to bread baking and most other baking for that matter (except for cheesecakes for 35 years) I find I have amassed quite a bit of equiptment. I do some catering so have always had very large bowls and spoons and such, then I got a decent stove for myself about 3 years ago with a convection oven in it........then I got the Hearth Kit for the oven........pretty soon I started collecting books on bread baking (still hadn't actually tried it but was getting fascinated by the thought of it) next came the brotforms for rising dough (picked them up while on vacation). I have had an old Hobart mixer for years now and while it looks like it went thru a war zone it still works great but after reading about all the problems others had with their stand mixers I ended up getting a Bosch clone called a Dimension2000, it works great but the company has gone out of business so I started getting nervous that if it broke on me I would be up the creek without the proverbial paddle (I supply my job with bread) so recently won a DLX on EBAY and fell in love with this machine for mixing large amounts of dough and would buy another in a heartbeat. I have the usual assortment of Silpats and such plus a few bench knives and the last thing I want is a dough knife by Sanelli (I've been using the brand in work kitchens for years now and love them) unfortunately the dough knife is hard to find. My husband has said he thinks I have enough equiptment here to run a small restaurant and me thinks he might be right........but we all have our hobbies. He does love the breads and pizza I've been turning out.