A Walk-In Baking Pantry: The Woldingham Project
This walk-in pantry was built for a 20th-century mansion, in a room leading off the main kitchen that was almost made for the purpose. When we first met the clients they arrived with a kitchen wish list, and a dedicated pantry was near the top of it. What makes this one unusual is its brief. Rather than a general food store, it was given over specifically to bread and baking, which is closer to what a pantry originally was.
The Baking Pantry at a Glance
A baking pantry is a walk-in pantry given over to bread, cakes and baking ingredients rather than general food storage. It suits a cool room away from the oven, with open shelving for flour, sugar and dry goods in jars, a generous run of worktop for rolling and proving, and a stone surface that stays cool for pastry and butter. This one is in traditional shaker, hand-painted in Fired Earth Weald Green with Polaris White Quartzite worktops. Handmade Kitchen Company design and hand-build pantries of this kind from our workshop in Essex.
A mirror set into the run reflects the kitchen beyond, which does two useful things in a room of this kind: it carries light into what would otherwise be an enclosed space, and it keeps the pantry visually connected to the kitchen rather than feeling shut away from it.
Colour and materials
The rich green, Weald Green by Fired Earth, runs through from the main kitchen so the two rooms read as one scheme. It suits the traditional character of the house, and a deeper colour works better in a pantry than a pale one: the room is used at close range, the shelves are full, and a stronger colour holds it together. The cabinetry is our
in a
layout, topped with Polaris White Quartzite. A U-shape is the right arrangement for a pantry, because it puts everything within a single turn and gives you worktop on three sides.
Open shelving and jars
The wall cabinets are broken up with open shelving, holding the dry ingredients the client uses most in labelled jars. Open shelving works in a pantry in a way it often does not in a kitchen: everything on it is in regular use, so it does not sit gathering dust, and decanting flour, sugar and grains into jars means you can see what is running low without opening anything. A Wolf coffee system sits within the run, which keeps another appliance off the kitchen worktop.
Built for baking
The shelving and worktop were planned around home baking, from bread through to sponges. That was the client's brief: a room dedicated to bread and baking, much as a pantry would have been used in the nineteenth century, when it was the cool store that sat apart from the heat of the kitchen. That history is worth taking seriously, because the reasoning still holds. A pantry positioned away from the oven stays cooler, which suits flour, chocolate, butter and anything that suffers in a warm kitchen. Stone worktops help for the same reason, staying cool enough to work pastry on.
Baking Pantry FAQs
What is a baking pantry?
A pantry set up specifically for baking rather than general food storage: shelving for flour, sugar and dry goods, worktop space for rolling and proving, and ideally a cool stone surface for pastry. It is closer to the original purpose of a pantry than the modern general-purpose version.
Where should a pantry go in relation to the kitchen?
Leading off it, but away from the oven and any south-facing glazing. A pantry works because it stays cooler and darker than the kitchen, and putting it beside the heat source undoes the main advantage.
What worktop is best in a pantry?
Stone or quartz. It stays cool, which matters for pastry and butter, and it takes the wear of heavy mixers and constant use. A stone cold shelf is worth including even where the rest of the worktop is timber.
Should a pantry have open shelving or closed cupboards?
Both, in most cases. Open shelving suits ingredients in daily use, particularly decanted into jars where you can see the levels. Closed cupboards take appliances, packaging and anything you would rather not look at. This pantry does both, with the wall cabinets broken up by open shelves.
Where does Handmade Kitchen Company build walk-in pantries?
We design, hand-build and hand-paint bespoke
and larders from our workshop in Essex, for clients across Essex, Hertfordshire and North London. If you would like to know more about our walk-in pantries,
today. We look forward to hearing from you.
