10 Essential Tools For Baking Cookies, Plus 8 That Are Really Nice to Have

Chances are you've seen rimless, insulated baking pans marketed as cookie sheets. Steer clear of these as they're a unitasker and no better at the job than a classic half sheet pan ($18). Be sure to buy light-colored aluminum (not nonstick) half sheet pans, as the darker color of nonstick pans will accelerate browning and even burn your cookies.

If you like to bake and have yet to invest in a kitchen scale ($50), it's time. Not only does measuring by weight rather than volume dramatically improve accuracy, but it also makes cleanup much easier, as you won't have dirtied any measuring cups.

We don't know about you, but we're so over wrestling with a tube of parchment and scissors; parchment sheets ($6 for 22) are precut to half-sheet-pan size, making prepping pans a breeze.

This six-pack of colorful sanding sugars ($35) will see you through many afternoons spent decorating cutout sugar cookies.

Creaming together butter and sugar is an essential step in many cookie recipes, as it both incorporates air into the finished product and creates homogenous dough. To do this properly, you'll need a mixer of some sort. If you have a small kitchen (or only bake occasionally), OXO's hand mixer ($80) is a better option than a stand mixer, since it takes up much less space and is a fraction of the price.

Sure, you can hack rolling out gingerbread or sugar cookie dough with an empty wine bottle, but a solid, well-made rolling pin ($40) makes things so much easier. And, provided you handwash it, it should last a lifetime.

Spring-loaded cookie scoops ($14) make portioning out drop cookies a breeze and ensure that they'll all be the same size (and bake in the same amount of time).

Fun to collect, cookie cutters (prices vary) make baking sugar and gingerbread cookies so much fun.

These cooling racks ($25) fit neatly inside half sheet pans, making for easy storage when they're not in use cooling cookies. We also like to nestle one in a pan when decorating cookies with sprinkles or powdered sugar to minimize cleanup.

It's a pretty safe assumption that your oven, unless recently calibrated (and sometimes, even then), runs hotter or colder than the temperature it's set to. An oven thermometer ($7) takes the guesswork (and burnt cookies) out of the equation.

If you only bake cookies occasionally, a hand mixer does the trick, but if you're an avid baker, a KitchenAid stand mixer ($350) is the gold standard.

A Silpat ($27 for half-sheet-pan size) is a great item to have in your arsenal, particularly for baking delicate cookies as it insulates the bottoms of the cookies, reducing browning.

Disposable pastry bags ($7) aren't as environmentally friendly as a reusable bag, but let's be real, cleaning out a resuable bag is a major pain. Don't have any pastry bags on hand? Fill a large, resealable plastic bag with icing and then snip off one corner for a makeshift pastry bag.

If you're the sort of person who finds joy in meticulously decking out cutout Christmas tree cookies with sprinkle ornaments and reindeers with red noses, this Williams-Sonoma Holiday Deco Kit ($20) will make you a very happy baker.

If you don't have a small offset spatula ($13), the tip of a toothpick works pretty well to spread royal icing over a cookie's surface. But if you plan to bake a bunch of iced cookies, it's a handy item to have.

Decorating iced cookies without first piping a border of icing around the edge of the cookie can be messy work; a #3 piping tip ($2) is just the right size for the job.

A cookie spatula ($8) sounds totally frivolous, but its flexible, near-paper-thin silicone edge slides under delicate cookies with ease.

We're not sure why supermarkets typically only sell liquid food coloring, as it is nowhere near as pigmented as gel food coloring ($25 for eight colors). It's nearly impossible to tint royal icing a saturated hue without this concentrated product.