Bay Area LIFE: Five essential baking tools

Here are the five essential baking tools you need to master any recipe: Spatula, thermometer, baking sheet, sieve and scale.

About Hilary Freeman:

Hilary Freeman has devoted her life to the art of baking. She loves empowering others to enjoy the same through her hands-on baking and pastry-making classes. A student of San Francisco's Le Cordon Bleu California Culinary Academy, Freeman graduated at the top of her class. She later went on to intern in The San Francisco Chronicle food and wine department where she worked in the test kitchen, developed recipes and wrote articles on her discoveries.

Her first trip to France solidified her passion for exquisite confections. Now the mother of two, Freeman and her husband Daniel are always on the lookout for an opportunity to take the family to Paris. While others might spend their time scouring the latest European fashions, Freeman patrols Parisian farmers' markets seeking new ingredients to add to her ever-growing repertoire of recipes, which includes one of her favorite sweet treats on the planet: French-style macarons (not macaroons!)

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