The bakers' most beloved kitchen tools

A spatula seems like an unusual thing to get excited about. But for the Season 2 bakers of The Great Canadian Baking Show, a good spatula  — or a quality stand mixer, or a sturdy bench scraper — can make all the difference.

It turns out the bakers of The Great Canadian Baking Show are almost as passionate about their tools as they are about their ingredients. Here are their favourite kitchen tools, and why they love them so much.

French rolling pin

"I cannot live without my French rolling pin. I love my French rolling pin. My brother-in-law bought it for me a few Christmases ago and it's absolutely the best thing. It's so consistent when I'm rolling out pastry or any of my special doughs. I love it." —Ann Marie

Stand mixer

"I can't live without my stand mixer. I always say if there was a fire in my house, I'd grab my dog and my purse with my passport in one hand and my stand mixer in the other. Everything else I could figure out later. I love that it does so much of the work. If you're doing a meringue, it gives you real meringue. If you're baking bread, you can do it by hand — but if you know how to use the dough hook attachment, it will make beautiful bread for you while you stand there and drink your coffee."  — Wendy

Spatula

"I'm a spatula hoarder. My husband gives me crap because you can't close our drawers at home. There are too many spatulas." — Megan

Kitchen scale

"It was a game changer when I got my kitchen scale. When you're measuring things like butter, it's really hard to do with volume because you start with a block. So I'd be like, "I need half a cup." And I know that a one-centimetre cube is equal to one millilitre. So I'd be measuring like, 'OK, so 7 centimetres by 4 centimetres by 11 centimetres,' and doing all this mental math trying to figure out the volume of a block of butter." — Timothy

Bench scraper

"I don't think I could live without a bench scraper. I love bench scraping. You can scrape off your workstation. You can smooth icing on cakes. They're multi-use. You can cut dough. I really love my bench scraper. I use it all the time." — Devon

Stand mixer, again

"It's a workhorse. It does everything I command it to do." — Sadiya

Spatulas, plural

"I have, like, 100 spatulas at home. I love spatulas, but it seems like I never have a clean one when I need it, so I'm always buying them." — Tim

Food processor

"I use it for everything, but it's specifically good for making pastry."— Andrei

Kitchen scale, part two

"I use my kitchen scale every single time I bake. It's so much more accurate than baking with volume. Even if I have a recipe that's in volume, I will convert it into weight." — Mengling

Bakers really love stand mixers

"I love my stand mixer. It has taken me through all the baking I've done. I love the power, I love the versatility, I can do anything with it. I can go from mixing a cake batter to whipping up a great meringue." — Sachin