Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer
The number one tool needed. Although the dough can be kneaded by hand I've never actually done that except for the few cases where it was explicitly stated in the original recipes to do that.
I prefer using the glass bowl because it comes with a cover. More often than not the dough has to rest in a covered container after the first mixing and just putting the lid on the bowl is much more convenient than moving the dough.
Also, as a general guideline, I make the Pre-Ferment in the glass bowl because usually everything else gets just added together (soaker, sourdough, additional ingredients) and mixed.
Electronic scale
Baking is somewhat more scientific than cooking and eyeballing generally a bad idea. Also it's a lot more common in German baking (cooking as well) to measure pretty much everything solid by weight and not by volume. So I already owned an electronic scale similar to the one on the picture.
For the recipes on this site it's advantages to use a scale that can switch to metric (I would argue it would be beneficial for the whole US to switch to metric, but I'm not going there ;-) ). If the scale covers a fairly wide range you can measure while you put stuff into the mixing bowl, however I usually don't do that since I'm always worried to overshoot.
Fermentation baskets
The one thing I would highly recommended buying if you plan on baking on a more regular basis. For the first 2 breads I used a random basket I found in the house but that didn't work so well. Dough gets stuck and having the right size is also important. Mine was a little too big so the breads came out a little flat. I bought both of the baskets in the pictures and I'm really happy with them. They have exactly the right size and give the breads a somewhat more professional look.
They are a little pricy but I got them on sale for about 50% off. Knowing how much better they work compared to what I had before I would even pay full price for them. If you only get one I'd go for the round one.
Measuring
It is good to have measuring cups with a relatively fine scale. In most cases you need less than a cup of water and I find the standard Pyrex things we have not very exact, although it probably works OK too. However for feeding the sourdough and getting the dry yeast started one needs fairy small amounts, so a small measuring cup would be very useful. The one I'm using I got in Germany and has a scale in 2ml steps up to 50ml which works perfectly for me.
A few ingredients are measured in teaspoons or tablespoons, so having measuring spoons for that is probably a good idea. However using regular spoons may also work fine. Long-term I would always prefer the standardized spoons though. Some of the original recipes I found measure even salt in grams, but I find that really difficult to do because the amounts are so small. So I used an online calculator I found and am now using teaspoons instead.
Digital Spoon scale
Not a must have but I recently got one of those and it helps a lot with measuring small amounts. Even though my regular scale has a 2g resolution, when measuring anything below 10g the accuracy of the spoon scale is just a lot better. And it isn't actually that expensive (well, I got it on sale for $16).
Storage Bag
I would prefer to store the breads in paper bags, but strangely I couldn't really find them in a good size. So I got this bread bag:
It's a little difficult to clean but keeps the bread really fresh (and if you follow the directions and don't fold the bag over it doesn't mold as quickly as in a plastic bag). Be aware though that there are no preservatives in any of the breads, so you might be surprised how quickly they mould ckmpared to store bought bread. Mine usually go bad after about 5-7 days.
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