Kitchen Design: Baking Stations Make Cooking More Fun

dalma darling Love this Ideabook, Vanessa! Gorgeous pics and great advice on how to make the kitchen functional for those who bake. I'm adding that mixer lift in the first pic to my future kitchen wishlist!

debradiller As a pastry chef, I would like to tell all designers that the ideal baking surface is a butcher block and never a marble top. Marble/granite is awesome for tempering chocolate, but horrible otherwise. It seems cold, but takes heat away and also takes cold away from anything it touches. Making danish etc is a nightmare on marble. Butcher block is awesome!

bogie252 A friend of mine just opened a pastry shop and hired a French baker, who would not accept the position unless she installed a marble top for making pastry. Interesting!

engineerchic I love all of them except the one tucked in a cupboard, it feels pretty confining. I would love a kitchen-aid lift, I keep mine tucked in a cabinet under our island.

BTW - if your kitchen is too small to have a separate counter that's lower than the rest for rolling out dough ... consider wearing heeled boots when you need to do this. I did it by accident one day and now I reach for 2.5" heels before I'm going to roll anything out! We have a large island (you could put a sleeping bag up there and feel confident you won't roll off) but I wanted to keep it as one continuous surface. Heels really do help if you're kneading or rolling a lot :)

Mary Kozma Some great ideas here! I love pull out trays!

jsreider I had an island in my kitchen with a lower section like the second picture. I hated it. It made it difficult to roll out pizza dough/cookies. Make your island all one level unless you can make your lower level larger just like in the first picture.

mountjoy My Kitchen Aid moves around when it is working hard. If I was making pizza dough on one of those mixer lifts it would surely fall off. I have never understood why it doesn't have a suction cup or something on the bottom to keep it from moving around.

PARADISE INTERIOR DESIGN I am the designer on this project and I'd like to say that the lift is a handy tool. But it doesn't mean that you have to use it on the stand. It was designed to help you 'lift' the heavy mixer so you can then just transport to the counter top and spare your back. Many people leave their mixer on the counter simply because it's too heavy to take in and out of a cabinet. The lift makes it easy to put away. You don't have to use it on the stand and I think it's easier to clean up a mess on the counter than it is on the floor. If your counter space is small then using it on the stand may be helpful, but it's definitely more stable on the counter. I do believe there are screws provided in the kit so you can secure your mixer to the stand. It's what ever works best for you but no lifting please! Thanks all, Ione

thandler Best Ideabook EVER! Thanks.

ooshi I had seen the mixer lift at a friends house and when I redid my kitchen it was a priority. Sometimes I leave it on the lift and sometimes I move it to the counter but when I am done it's put away and doesn't take up counter space. Great!

Susie Davis Since I love the look of my Mixer, it's left on the baking counter at all times, however, the appliance lift is GREAT for the food processor or blender which are not as heavy as the mixer and seem to remain stable, (on mine, at least) Also, love the hidden plug underneath.

calkelley We just sold the house we've lived in for 18 years and it had a kitchen of anyone's dreams! I am so going to miss it. It had two lifts - one for the mixer, one for the Cuisinart - and it is something I will always have whatever I have to do to get it. I also liked the corian breakfast table attached to the island which was lower for a baking station. Made some great food there.

dotknot To make it easier to move my Kitchenaid mixer out of the way on my counter, I put it on a large clear glass(?) cutting board with the the little "feet" removed (or turn it upside down) to make it easy to slide somewhere else. It fits almost perfectly, and you really can't see it under there unless you are looking for it. I haven't noticed it moving around when in use, but will definitely keep an eye on it. I could see that happening when mixing tougher doughs like pizza dough.

sally0203 Mountjoy, my Kitchen Aid actually fell off my counter. Fortunately the dog wasn't underneath! And the mixer wasn't damaged. We called Kitchen Aid and they said it's important to keep the feet clean. I did that and it doesn't seem to move around. But I agree. I couldn't work with it on that little stand.

stargazer51 Photo #3 is a good way to provide a lower working surface and still have all your counters at the same height. Having one section of the island lower wouldn't work visually in some kitchens. And I still have time to incorporate this in my design!

Diane Barry Regarding the mixer/lifter: I had one installed in a lower cabinet when we built our house 11 years ago and I loved it but when I replaced my standard sized Kitchen-Aid for a bigger version I found it wouldn't fit. I ended up removing the lift shelf and replacing it with 2 roll-out shelves. So if you are thinking of putting a lift in, make sure your mixer will fit. On another note: wish I had not put my cooktop in my island - wish I had a big, uninterrupted counter to work on instead. Love the pictures and ideas here!

smokeman Whether you have a standard-height counter or a lower one (e.g. 32") for baking, you can incorporate a slide-out pastry board. We designed one into the home our family built in 1970. The 32" high baking counter ran along one wall adjacent to the refrigerator, a good 6 to 7 feet in length. The pastry board was nearly 4 feet wide and almost as deep as the countertop. It fit in a slot between the counter and the drawers, with support rails built into the cabinet structure to allow the board to be used in place partially extended or removed entirely. I don't remember whether it was solid butcher-block style construction or whether it was 3/4 - 1" birch furniture-grade plywood. It was trimmed with a facing board stained to match the base cabinets; the facing board had a finger groove routed on the underside to serve as a pull, and it was slightly wider than the slot (like a drawer face). Wide drawers beneath held baking utensils. The board was heavy but not unwieldy. We often removed it to place elsewhere as a cooling or serving station for baked goods.

Your pastry board could be designed to hold a marble or quartz slab insert, thought that would make it considerably heavier. Locating the slot beneath the first row of drawers on a 35-36" high countertop would put the slide-out surface at 30-32" height.

Susie Davis Diane Barry, that is exactly what happened to me. When I upgraded to the Pro Kitchenaid without the lifting head, mine would no longer fit on the lift. The one pictured above seems to be the Pro model, so I must have a smaller lift. When we put ours in 12 years ago, it was the only one offered. So, you are correct, make SURE you get a lift which will accomodate the largest, heaviest just in case in the future you want to go bigger!

Diane Barry Susie Davis: We were only offered one size mixer lift when we built our house - and honestly, I never even thought about the size. Hope they do make them in a variety of sizes now and if I had it to do again I'd put in the biggest, sturdiest one they made so I'd have options for the future. I never thought of leaving the lift in when I got my Pro model and using it for the food processor instead. I only thought - literally - mixer shelf! Oh well - happy to have the roll out shelves - only wish I'd put them in all my lower cabinets!