This small-batch vanilla extract from Kansas-based Vain Vanilla is prepared completely by hand using only the best ingredients. The Original Baker's Blend is made with top-shelf rum that emphasizes vanilla's sweet characteristics and adds its own cane-sugar dimension. We especially love that Vain Vanilla leaves its vanilla pods in the bottle, which has two benefits. First, over time the extract will continue to deepen in color and become more complex as the pods release more flavor compounds. Second, when you're done with the vanilla extract, you can still slice open the pods and use the beans themselves in your desserts.

The Italian condiment saba dates back to the ancient Romans, who first started cooking fruit juice down to a syrup, in order to remove its water content and preserve their harvest. We at Milk Street are obsessed with the Organic Apple Saba from La Vecchia Dispensa for its especially complex taste, with a rich quality reminiscent of dried fruit—think raisins or plums—and a semi-tart, bright finish that is pure apple. The deep sweetness of La Vecchia Dispensa's Organic Apple Saba can serve as a great complementary flavor in savory recipes, similar to balsamic.

Produced from hand-picked apples, not the low-grade and windfall apples most companies use, and aged in oak barrels for two years before bottling, Little Apple Treats cider is bright and sharp, with a bold apple flavor and subtle caramel tones contributed by the barrel aging. This is the best American apple cider vinegar we’ve tasted, every bit on par with the fancy, expensive French stuff from Normandy.

Also known as Saigon cinnamon, Royal Cinnamon is a hard-to-find heirloom variety that comes from the mountains of central Vietnam. Our recipe developers agreed it was the sweetest and brightest cinnamon we have ever tasted, with an aroma you can smell from across the room. It's clean-flavored and boldly spicy-sweet, yet with a delicate quality. To fully appreciate its flavor, we recommend trying Royal Cinnamon first in simple applications.

Specially formulated for baking, superfine caster sugar has a smaller, more delicate grain than regular white sugar, which makes it much easier to incorporate into recipes. The sugar crystals dissolve faster because of their size, so it might read as a little sweeter than standard sugar to some because of how fast it melts on the tongue. Although this kind of sugar is fairly available in grocery stores, we like this one best for its high quality and simple packaging, which makes it easy to pour into the jar or canister of your choice. This really is a fantastic upgrade to your standard plain white sugar.

This block is made from just pure organic Vermont maple syrup—that’s it. As maple syrup connoisseurs, we adore the rich stuff from Vermont’s Mount Mansfield Maple: a family farm that harvests maple sap from over 1,000 acres of well-cared-for maple trees. This maple block is essentially a large cube of maple sugar candy, which is made by boiling maple sap past the point of syrup until it crystallizes into hard sugar. The taste is sweet, maple-forward with light caramelized notes. To use, simply grate a pile of sweet flakes that can be swirled into coffee or tea, top meats for the grill and, of course, enhance all kinds of desserts.

These herb bundles from northern Spain are a bouquet garni with a Spanish twist: thyme, oregano and savory wrapped in a bay leaf and tied by hand. Farcellets are a versatile and easy-to-use selection of aromatic herbs for cooking. They are wonderful to have on hand in the dark winter months when fresh herbs are not as abundant. In Spain you will see farcellets pre-packaged with simple vegetables for one-stop soup supplies. They are fantastic in a pot of beans or stew. Place one or two in the cavity of a hen before roasting to flavor from the inside out.

Working with Montana-based Earlywood, we designed our perfect rolling pin. The gentle, graduated taper starts off at 1 3/8 inches thick, slimming down to roughly 3/4 of an inch at the ends—perfect for rolling out the flattest, most even crusts. We prefer this French style to American-style ball-bearing pins because the lighter weight provides better control; tapered pins are also ideal for rolling out circles of dough. (Rotate the pin in an arc with the right hand while keeping the left side of the pin stationary.) In addition, we prefer longer pins that can handle a full pie crust, so we designed this model to be 20 inches long. Finally, a rolling pin has to be just the right weight: heavy enough to do the work for you but not so heavy that you lose touch with the dough underneath. This pin is a perfect one pound. Earlywood’s dark, dense hardwoods feel good in the hand and won’t dent if used to crush ice or flatten cutlets. For an especially sturdy rolling pin that is destined to become a family heirloom, we recommend the Mexican ebony. Not only does it have a gorgeous dark luster that will add interest to your kitchenware collection, the wood is also nearly indestructible.

Standard potato mashers are often too bulky and always end up crammed in our kitchen drawers, but this one folds flat so it doesn’t take up nearly any space! The oval-shaped blade grid make quick work of even the most unruly spuds and even other types of food. It’s constructed from sturdy stainless steel, so it will hold up to frequent use, and the silicone-coated, ergonomic handle makes it easy to use. Plus, the masher end is edged in silicone to protect the surface of your pot or pan while using the tool.

This box grater features four cutting sides—coarse grate, medium grate, fine grate and slice—all made from etched metal, which increases each blade’s sharpness and durability, and they won’t buckle under pressure. And unlike other brands, which often have a thick frame of metal or plastic between each cutting surface, Cusipro extends each of their grater's cutting surfaces to the edge: more area means easier slicing, quicker grating and less work, so you can tackle soft foods like certain cheeses and sturdy veggies like carrots with ease. Plus, there aren’t any extra nooks and crannies for bits of food to get stuck in, making for easier cleanup. Its ergonomic top handle is coated in comfortable, nonslip rubber, and the grater has a rubberized detachable base that holds it steady, measures volume and collects the gratings. You can simply grate, measure, remove and dump directly into your pan without extra fuss.

This three-piece set of heavy-gauge stainless steel mixing bowls has a more durable construction than others. Each bowl has a black silicone lining on its bottom, which prevents the bowls from shifting and slipping during prep work. They are fairly tall-sided, rather than widening further from the base toward the rim; this means less food spilling out and a generous capacity to prepare large batches of food at a time. We also appreciate how the non-slip linings are tightly adhered to the bowls; on poorly made models, this rubberized base may detach and fall off over time.