A 2026 gift guide for the fall baker

Thanksgiving is on November 26 this year. Here's a wishlist for the person in charge of the pies, and the pumpkin bread before that. Pick the items you want with "Add to wishlist," or take the whole list with the button at the bottom:

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The pie dish

In 1850 a potter named Jacques Henry opened a workshop in Marcigny, in southern Burgundy, with two hand-turned wheels and two wood-fired kilns. The company is still in Marcigny and still makes its dishes from Burgundy clay. The standard pie dish is about 9 inches across on the inside, holds 1.5 quarts and comes with a 10-year warranty.

The spices

Burlap & Barrel started in 2016 after Ethan Frisch tasted wild-grown cumin in Afghanistan. He and his friend Ori Zohar put in about $20,000 each, and the company buys straight from smallholder farmers instead of going through brokers.

The Baker's Half Dozen is six of those spices in a gift box: Royal Cinnamon from the Quang Nam mountains of Vietnam, chai from Zanzibar, ginger from Cao Bằng in Vietnam, wild mesquite from Argentina, turmeric from India and cloves from Selayar Island in Indonesia. The 13-spice Baker's Dozen adds allspice, cardamom, saffron and a pepita pumpkin spice, among others.

The loaf pan

Nordic Ware is the Minneapolis company that invented the Bundt pan. In 1950, members of the Minnesota chapter of Hadassah asked its owner, H. David Dalquist, to copy a heavy cast-iron cake pan one family had brought from Germany. He made it in aluminum, added the "t" to trademark the name, and the pan took off after a Bundt cake placed second in the 1966 Pillsbury Bake-Off. The company still makes more than 90% of its products in Minneapolis. The Wheat & Pumpkin pan is cast aluminum, holds 6 cups and puts pumpkins and sheaves of wheat on top of the loaf, with a scalloped edge.

The cookbook

Emily and Melissa Elsen grew up in Hecla, South Dakota, where their mother and aunts ran a restaurant called the Calico Kitchen and their grandmother Liz made all the pies. The sisters started out baking pies in their Crown Heights apartment and opened Four & Twenty Blackbirds in Gowanus, Brooklyn, in 2010. The book has about 60 of the shop's recipes, like Salted Caramel Apple and Salty Honey, organized by season.

The pie bird

The shop's name comes from "Sing a Song of Sixpence," where four and twenty blackbirds get baked in a pie. That rhyme is also why pie vents are shaped like birds. Victorian cooks set a hollow funnel in the middle of a pie to let the steam out, which kept the filling from boiling over through the crust and held the top crust up so it didn't sag. The bird shapes came in the 1930s. Grace Seccombe registered one in Australia in 1933, and Clarice Cliff's blackbird, registered a couple of years later, is usually called the first English one.

The boiled cider

Wood's Cider Mill is a family farm in Weathersfield, Vermont. Fresh cider goes into the same wood-fired evaporator the family uses for maple syrup and boils down until it's a thick syrup, with nothing added. The family bought its cider press in 1882 and still uses it. King Arthur, which sells the boiled cider, suggests a few tablespoons in apple pie filling or whisking it with powdered sugar and cream for a glaze.

The rolling pin

J.K. Adams started in 1944 when Josiah K. Adams opened a woodworking shop in a garage in Dorset, Vermont. The company later made parts for surveying equipment, and it turned the leftover maple and ash into cutting boards that it set out on the loading dock with a donation can. The factory could barely keep up with the demand. The French pin is one piece of wood with no handles, and the tapered ends make it easier to pivot when rolling out a round crust.

A class

For anyone without a bakery class nearby, King Arthur runs baking schools in Norwich, Vermont, and Skagit Valley, Washington, with a pies and tarts category, plus on-demand video classes.

In conclusion

The list above copies straight into a new WishPoster list with the Harvest theme. Or start one from scratch.