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Like pretty much everybody else, my sourdough started in lockdown and just carried on. Pizza came from a present. We were bought a pizza stone, and I wanted to get something close to what you would get in a pizza restaurant. It became a bit of a rabbit hole, and I ended up with a pizza oven in the garden.
When I buy anything for baking, I tend to go for the least expensive version that will get the job done and last. A gift is different. It can be a bit more luxurious, the kind of thing I wouldn't normally spend the money on myself. If somebody bought it for me, that would be rather nice. That's how I've picked a lot of what follows.
Steven, BakeClass
Baking and Cookery Experience Gifts
A class is the gift people tell me they would never have booked for themselves, and it gets round the usual problem with buying for a keen baker, who will often already own most of the kit.
A Voucher They Can Swap
The hard part of buying a class for someone else is choosing it, because you have to guess the subject, the place and the date.
An experience-day voucher takes most of that guesswork away. If you are not sure which class they would pick, choose one that looks about right from Activity Superstore's cookery and food experiences (paid link), and the recipient can exchange it once, free of charge, for a different experience of the same value as long as they have not booked a date yet.
It does not have to be a hands-on class either. A proper afternoon tea (paid link) or a meal somewhere special is a treat in its own right, and anyone who bakes will spend half of it working out how the pastry was made.
Check the voucher terms before you buy, as some promotional offers are excluded.
Bread Making and Chocolate Workshops
If you would rather choose something specific, these are the two I would look at first.
- Bread
- Leicestershire
- For two
Bread, in the Midlands
Brockleby's is a working bakery near Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire, and its two-hour bread making workshop for two sends you both home with the loaves you made.
- Chocolate
- London or Manchester
- For one
Chocolate, in London or Manchester
My Chocolate's chocolate making workshop is a voucher for one person, so it suits a present for a friend more than a couple.
If you are leaning towards chocolate, my guide to the best chocolate making classes in the UK explains what to check before you book one.
A Gift Voucher From a Baking School Near Them
Experience-day companies only carry a handful of baking classes, but most of the schools in this directory sell their own gift vouchers, and for a lot of people a school twenty minutes from home makes a better present than a well-known one three hours away.
Start with the subject they would enjoy most, such as bread making, sourdough, chocolate making or pizza, where each page lists schools by area. When you find one, check the school's own website for a voucher, its expiry date and whether it covers one person or two.
My guide to baking classes as gifts goes through the choice between an open voucher and a booked class, and what to spend.
The Upgrade They Would Never Buy Themselves
Every keen baker owns a thermometer, a rolling pin and a bread knife, but most own a basic one, so these are the nicer versions I would love to be given.
Top of my own list
A Thermapen
I use an inexpensive probe thermometer and it does the job, but I would be delighted if someone gave me a Thermapen. It reads almost instantly, which helps when you are checking a loaf, a custard or tempered chocolate.
Mercer Culinary, 9 inch
A good bread knife
A basic serrated knife will slice bread, but a good one goes through a dark, crackly crust without crushing the crumb. The Mercer Culinary 9 inch knife is the one I would like. It is forged with a full tang so it feels solid in the hand, and Amazon buyers compare it with knives costing a good deal more. They mention thin, clean slices with hardly any crumbs, and warn that it is very sharp.
KitchenAid, maple
A proper rolling pin
A well-made rolling pin is a pleasure to use and looks good left out on the side. The KitchenAid one is a tapered French-style pin in solid maple, which makes it easy to pivot and turn pastry or pizza dough. Amazon buyers say it rolls dough out more evenly than a shorter supermarket pin and that pastry does not stick to the smooth wood. It is 51cm long, so make sure there is a drawer to keep it in.
Gozney, stainless steel
A really nice dough scraper
Plastic scrapers cost very little, which is what makes a good steel one a nice present. The Gozney dough scraper is stainless steel and gets used every bake, for bread as well as pizza. Some buyers say it is smaller than they expected, but those who bake several times a week say it soon becomes the one they reach for first.
Gifts for Sourdough Bakers
These are for someone who already has a starter on the go. If they are starting from scratch, my sourdough essentials page sets out what to buy first and what can wait.
For the loaf that spreads
A pair of proving baskets
This is for anyone still proving dough in a bowl lined with a tea towel. Before I bought these oval bannetons my loaves came out with creases from the tea towel, and although they tasted the same they did not look as good. Both of mine are still as good as new three years on.
- Budget
- Mine since 2023
The main present
A cast iron pot
A cast iron pot is the main present for a sourdough baker who does not have one. Mine has baked bread regularly since 2021 without any problems, and the only drawback, which my review covers, is that the pale enamel stains. It is heavy, so have it delivered to your own address rather than theirs.
- Budget
- Mine since 2021
Flour Worth Giving
I always enjoy being given a flour I have not baked with before. Sometimes it makes a bread of its own and sometimes I mix it with flour I already have to get something different, and either way it is an inexpensive present that gets used straight away.
Doves Farm
Doves Farm is a mill I trust and has a wide organic range. Their wholegrain rye flour (paid link) is a good place to start, either for a darker, denser loaf or a few spoonfuls in a white dough, and their organic strong white bread flour (paid link) makes a reliable base for everyday bread.
Wessex Mill
Wessex Mill is another mill I rate, with a good range of stoneground and speciality flours.
Molino Dallagiovanna
This is the type 00 flour I would give anyone with a pizza oven.
M&S
If you are shopping on the high street, I think M&S has the best value and the widest range of the big names.
Gifts for Pizza Oven Owners
Someone who already owns a pizza oven can be hard to buy for, but most people with one have not got round to the smaller tools that make a pizza night run smoothly, and those make good presents.
Used every pizza night
A pizza oven brush
After a few pizzas the stone is covered in burnt flour, which sticks to the next base, so I use a long-handled brush to clear it between bakes. This one has brass bristles, a steel scraper on the back for anything stuck on, and a wooden handle long enough to reach the back of the oven while keeping my hand out of the heat. It splits into two pieces for storage, if needed.
- I own this one
Buy it because you want it
A rocker cutter
A rocker cutter makes a clean cut in one press without dragging the topping across the pizza. A long knife will do the same job, so it is not essential, but it is the kind of tool people enjoy using and rarely buy for themselves.
- Mid range
For the next skill
A turning peel
A turning peel is for someone who has got the hang of launching a pizza and is ready for the next step, as it lets them rotate the base without taking it out of the heat. It takes some practice, but once you get used to it the turn takes a second.
- Mid range
Cut and serve
Wooden pizza boards
Two large round boards let you cut and serve the pizza on the same surface. Buy the 16 inch size, because a rocker cutter needs room to come down past the crust.
- Budget
If they do not have an oven yet, a pizza stone is how my own pizza habit started and makes the best present for someone making pizza in a kitchen oven. For everything else, see my pizza essentials page.
Baking Books Worth Giving
A baking book is one of the few presents that is better as the real thing than as a download. You can flick through it on the sofa when you are not baking and have it open on the worktop when you are, without a screen going dark under floury fingers, and if you write in the margins it slowly becomes your own record of what worked.
I own both of Richard Bertinet's books below. He does a great job of demystifying bread making. Most of his recipes are simple to follow, a few need a bit more skill, and they give excellent results. I have plenty of recipe books that gather dust on the shelf, but his are covered in flour with the pages folded back from constant use.
The other two are on my own list this Christmas.
Dough by Richard Bertinet
This is the book I would give someone new to bread.
- I own this
Crust by Richard Bertinet
This is the one to give next, covering sourdough, spelt and rye as well as ciabatta, bagels and brioche.
- I own this
The Perfect Loaf by Maurizio Leo
This one is on my own list. It is for the sourdough baker who wants to understand why things work as well as how, and covers the craft and the science of sourdough in depth.
The Sourdough School by Vanessa Kimbell
This is also on my list, and it approaches sourdough with a focus on gut-friendly bread.
Stocking Fillers for Bakers
These are small things that earn their place, and all of them are in the Budget band.
An infrared thermometer
Pointing it at the pizza stone tells you whether the surface is hot enough. Mine is over a year old and gets used before every launch, and the inexpensive one is all anyone needs.
- Budget
Razor blades for scoring
A box of double-edge blades lasts a home baker for years, and I still have plenty left from the box I bought three years ago. They are sold as shaving blades, so expect an age check when you order.
- Budget
A set of dough scrapers
The set of three gives them a steel scraper for the bench and two plastic ones for the bowl, and I was surprised to find I use all three.
- Budget
On My Own List This Year
Steven's wishlist
A silicone bread sling
The nervous moment in a sourdough bake is lowering the dough into a pot at 250C. A silicone sling has long handles to lift the loaf in and out, and it can be reused, so there is no baking paper to cut each time. Amazon buyers say it makes that moment far less nerve-racking, although reviews are mixed on how long it lasts and it may be too big for a small pot, so check the size against yours. It is the kind of small upgrade I never get round to buying for myself.
Last-Minute Baking Gifts and Delivery Times
Kit has to arrive in time, so order it early and check the delivery date at the checkout.
Vouchers give you more time, as Activity Superstore says its eVouchers arrive by email within 15 minutes and you can choose a date for the email to reach the recipient, although a posted gift pack takes longer. The vouchers in this guide showed 12 months of validity when I checked in October 2026.
- 15 minutesHow quickly Activity Superstore says an eVoucher arrives by email.
- A date you chooseThe eVoucher can be sent to the recipient on a set day.
- 12 monthsThe validity shown on the vouchers in this guide, checked October 2026.
A school's own voucher is often the quickest option of all, as many schools email them as soon as you pay, ready to print and put in a card.
Details of experiences, voucher terms and delivery were correct when I checked them in October 2026 and may change. Check the current terms before you buy.
Steven Foers is the founder of BakeClass, a directory of baking schools across the UK.