How to Make Your Own Homemade Baking Mix

I don’t know about you, but I love the convenience of a premade biscuit mix. Since all you need to add is milk or buttermilk, it takes less than a minute to whip up a batch of fluffy biscuits. It probably takes longer for the oven to preheat than it does to mix the biscuits! What I don’t love: Expensive store-bought mixes have an ingredient list that contain a few things I’d rather avoid (sodium aluminum phosphate? No thank you!). Luckily, homemade baking mix is super easy to throw together and it’s shelf-stable, so you can store it in the pantry until it reaches the expiration date on the shortening (not that it ever lasts that long in my house).

This budget-friendly alternative to store-made mixes only requires four pantry-staple ingredients and it makes some of the best biscuits I’ve ever had. You’ll get more than just tender biscuits with a lightly browned exterior, too. This versatile biscuit mix also makes incredible scones and tasty dumplings—you can use it in any recipe that calls for the store-bought stuff.

The recipe makes about 48 biscuits but can easily be doubled or tripled if you’re an avid baker.

How to Make Your Own Biscuit Baking Mix

Yield: 12 cups biscuit mix, or about 48 biscuits

Ingredients

For the biscuit baking mix:

9 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup baking powder
1 tablespoon salt
2 cups shortening, chilled and cut into small pieces

For the biscuits:

1 cup biscuit baking mix
1/3 cup cream, milk, or buttermilk

Instructions

Step 1: Mix it up.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Cut in the shortening using your hands until the mixture is crumbly with some pea-sized clumps. If you don’t like getting your hands dirty (or you’re doubling the recipe), you can use a food processor. Place all ingredients in the bowl and pulse until the mixture looks like coarse meal.

Pro Tip: “Cutting in” refers to the step of baking recipes where you add shortening, lard or butter to dry flour. The process coats the flour proteins with fat, allowing a flaky texture to develop when the pastry bakes. If you’re working with a large amount of pastry dough, you may want to use a pastry blender or food processor, but you can also use your fingertips when working with small recipes like this one.

Step 2: Store it in the pantry.

Once the mixture is well combined, place the biscuit mix in an airtight container. Label it with a “use-by” date (obtained from the shortening package) and store it in a cool, dry place. You can also freeze this mixture for up to 8 months.

Step 3: Get to baking!

Congratulations, you now have 12 cups of ready-to-bake biscuit mix! Just add 1/3 cup cream, milk or buttermilk to the mixture and bake ’em up. But the fun doesn’t stop with biscuits. You can use this mix to make your favorite scones or whip up a batch of chicken dumpling soup, among other tasty things.

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Turkey Dumpling Stew

My mom made this stew when I was young, and it was always a hit. Since it's not time-consuming to make I can fix it on a weekend for our children, who love the tender dumplings. —Becky Mohr, Appleton, Wisconsin

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