It won't be the sexiest tool in your kitchen, but a good, flexible dough scraper is an essential part of any baker's kit. It's such an inexpensive investment, yet invaluable to have around whenever you're dealing with messy, wet, or sticky doughs.

The fact that it's slightly pliable and keeps your hand so close to the action (rather than at the end of a handle) makes it easy to get every last bit of dough or batter out of a bowl and onto your work surface or into a baking dish. And even then, it's stiff enough to divide doughs into smaller portions, sort of like a dull knife.

If you're dealing with especially sensitive doughs, it helps that the scraper doesn't transfer the natural heat of your hands and potentially ruin the end product.

These scrapers are endlessly useful for other little tasks too, like smoothing out the tops of cake or brownie batter before going in the oven, transferring chopped veggies and such from a cutting board to a cooking pot, and more.

Get a two-pack of these handy (get it?) scrapers for less than $5 on Amazon. If you wanna go nuts, grab an 8-pack for just a couple bucks more.