The Most Important Baking Tool You Need, According To Duff Goldman - Exclusive

Most of us out there, no matter how hard we try, will probably never create a cake of quite the caliber that you can expect from celebrity pastry chef and former host of "Ace of Cakes" Duff Goldman. But that doesn't mean we can't try. Baking and pastry decorating are skills that take time and practice. And pretty soon, baking enthusiasts all over the country will get the chance to follow in Goldman's sugar-dusted footsteps and level up their cake capabilities at Duff's Cakemix, the DIY cake decorating studio of your dreams that could be opening up near you in the future.

In the meantime, you can improve your baking game at home — and you don't need a whole bunch of fancy equipment to make desserts that even the Ace of Cakes himself would devour. For the most part, keeping things simple and precise is the key to mastering any bake. However, that doesn't mean there aren't a few tools and gadgets out there that can make your life a lot easier and your recipes a lot more foolproof. 

We turned to the certified confectionery expert himself to find out what, if anything, we should have on hand to ace our bakes every time. In an exclusive interview with Tasting Table, Goldman revealed the most important tool he thinks every home baker needs to have in their kitchen.

If you want to ensure you get the best bakes possible every time, Duff Goldman says that the first thing you need to invest in is a scale. He suggested, "If you're a home baker and you want to do this, say, a couple times a month ... Take all the recipes that you have, even if they're not written in grams — even if they're only written in cups and tablespoons — and next time you're going to make your favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe, measure out all your ingredients and weigh them."

According to the master of all things cake, a scale helps you get the same exact amounts of each of your ingredients every time — whereas simply using measuring cups to mark cups and tablespoons leaves for variation and error from batch to batch. But if you use a scale to exact your process, your recipes will "come out exactly the same every single time." He explained, "When you're scooping, a cup of flour can weigh 6.5 ounces or it can weigh 7.5 ounces. That one-ounce difference is a big difference in the finished texture of a cookie."

Check out Duff's Cakemix before it heads to a location near you, and click here to learn more about franchising opportunities.