5 Tips For Organizing Your Pantry for the Holidays

Holiday baking season is right around the corner! With a little preparation, you can avoid feeling overwhelmed at the thought of making all those pies, cookies, and other family favorites and focus on enjoying the process — and your time together. 

Here are our top tips for preparing your pantry for the holidays: 

• Collect your favorite recipes. Plan which desserts you want to make and pull or mark those recipes. Don’t forget to ask your loved ones if they have any requests. Maybe your grandchildren can’t wait to decorate those star-shaped sugar cookies again this year! 
• Gather the essentials. Flour, rolled oats, sugar, brown sugar, cocoa powder, canned pumpkin, baking vanilla, spices, and neutral oil (such as canola) are easy to purchase and store in advance. 
• Get rid of expired baking items. 
  • Spices like ground ginger, cinnamon, and nutmeg are good for up to four years.
  • However, flour, baking powder, and baking soda need to be replaced every year.
• Consider storing dry ingredients in transparent containers. Decanting bulkier items, such as flour and sugars, into see-through containers — such as attractive glass jars — makes it easy to see if you’re running low on something.
• Do an inventory of your baking pans. Need a jelly roll pan (or two) to make that raspberry-filled chocolate cake you’ve been meaning to try? Make sure you have it in hand, along with any other specialty molds or forms you need. This is also a good time to go through your regular pie pans, cake pans, and insulated cookie sheets and upgrade as needed and donate or throw away anything you no longer use. 

Happy baking!