How do you make biscuit mix?

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MERTON

Assistant Cook
Joined
Aug 9, 2006
Messages
46
how do you make biscuit mix? i want to eliminate trans fat without eliminating my biscuits. other types of fat are just fine by me though. i need more of it since the rest of my diet's mostly carbs.
 
I've posted this before, but it's been a long time ago.

Homemade Bisquick

For biscuits, pancakes, waffles, muffins, gingerbread, cookies, cakes
and lots of other good things.

Master Baking Mix
9 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1/3 cup baking powder
1 tablespoon salt
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
4 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 1/2 cups nonfat dry milk solids
2 cups shortening (which does not
require refrigeration)

Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, cream of tartar and sugar
three times. Add dry milk. Mix well. Cut in shortening with pastry
blender or two knives until mixture looks like cornmeal. Store in
covered container at room temperature.

NOTE: To measure the Master Baking Mix, pile it lightly into cup and
level off with a table knife.

Biscuits
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Combine 1 1/2 cups Master Baking Mix and
1/3 cup milk in a bowl. Add milk all at once, stirring 25 strokes. Knead
lightly on floured board. Roll 1/2-inch thick; cut and place on
ungreased baking sheet. Bake 10 minutes. Makes 8.

Options: Add grated cheese, chopped herbs. Increase milk to 1/2 cup for
drop biscuits. Use as a topping on casseroles, cobblers or meat and
vegetable pies.

*Note: I have quite a few recipes for using this mix, if you are interested.
 
By the way, if you want a baking mix without the shortening, just buy self-rising flour. I think you can get self-rising cornmeal, too.
 
Trying to read between the lines here .... I take it that your question is how to make biscuits without shortening or hydrogenated lard? You've got two options:

1) Go to a butcher and get some pork fat (tell him you want it to render for lard and he will know what to give you) - then you can render it yourself. This page has a good explanation of the basics with some pictures ... this page doesn't have pictures but may be easier to understand. If you can get the butcher to grind it fine for you - you will save time.

2) Instead of the kind of biscuit that you cut the shortening into the dry ingredients, mix up with the wet, roll out, and cut with a biscuit cutter ... you can change to a different kind of biscuit - a drop biscuit. You can find a bunch of recipes here (sorry, way too many recipes to post links to individually).

IMHO - it's not so much a matter that shortening, and other hydrogenated oils, contain TRANS fats, as understanding that it behaves as saturated fat in the body (although chemically it is still an unsaturated fat). The big outcry about TRANS fats is that since they started putting nutritional information on labels - they were treated by their chemical composition (as unsaturated fats) and not by their impact on the body (saturated fats).
 
You can make biscuits with any fat. My mom used to make them with bacon drippings sometims. I usually do it with olive oil. The texture is somewhat different, not quite so flaky, but still good.

Most single batch biscuit recipes call for about 1/4 cup shortening. You don't want to use that much olive oil or the biscuit will be too soggy. 2-3 Tablespoons of oil works well though. Garlic oil is also good.

thymeless
 
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Constance said:
By the way, if you want a baking mix without the shortening, just buy self-rising flour. I think you can get self-rising cornmeal, too.

Is this correct? Biscuits with no shortening would be pretty awful wouldn't they?

If you have a KA style mixer it is easy to cut shortening into flour using the whisk attachment. Don't over mix, of course.

I think there is now a Crisco with no trans-fat.
 
Here is a "health nut" version of a biscuit mix. If you do not want to use this recipe, it may give you some ideas anyway.......

8 cups whole wheat pastry flour or whole wheat all purpose flour
5 T. baking powder
1 T. salt
1 to 2 cups dry milk powder (optional*)
1 1/2 cup oil or butter

Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. Cut in the oil or butter to a fine texture. Store tightly covered in the refrigerator.

To use:

For biscuits, use three cups mix to 2/3 cup milk or water, * depending on if you used dried milk in the mix.
 
Michael in FtW said:
Trying to read between the lines here .... I take it that your question is how to make biscuits without shortening or hydrogenated lard? You've got two options:

1) Go to a butcher and get some pork fat (tell him you want it to render for lard and he will know what to give you) - then you can render it yourself. This page has a good explanation of the basics with some pictures ... this page doesn't have pictures but may be easier to understand. If you can get the butcher to grind it fine for you - you will save time.
The Brands of lard I see in the stores are Armour and Bryan, both hydrogenated, but I've been told that lard that is not hydrogenated is available. I think the person who wrote that lived in Northern California.
Michael in FtW said:
2) Instead of the kind of biscuit that you cut the shortening into the dry ingredients, mix up with the wet, roll out, and cut with a biscuit cutter ... you can change to a different kind of biscuit - a drop biscuit. You can find a bunch of recipes here (sorry, way too many recipes to post links to individually).

IMHO - it's not so much a matter that shortening, and other hydrogenated oils, contain TRANS fats, as understanding that it behaves as saturated fat in the body (although chemically it is still an unsaturated fat). The big outcry about TRANS fats is that since they started putting nutritional information on labels - they were treated by their chemical composition (as unsaturated fats) and not by their impact on the body (saturated fats).
Michael,
Are you saying that trans fat is no worse than saturated fat?

I'm not looking to debate the question as I'm just now beginning to try to get my arms around the question. I just want to understand your point.

MERTON said:
how do you make biscuit mix? i want to eliminate trans fat without eliminating my biscuits. other types of fat are just fine by me though. i need more of it since the rest of my diet's mostly carbs.
Merton,
If I understood your first post correctly my impulse would be, as thymeless suggested, try substituting bacon drippings or butter for the shortening or lard in whatever recipe you're used to. I haven't tried biscuits with olive oil but I have replaced olive oil for shortening in flour tortillas and cornbread so it's worth a try.
 
bethzaring said:
Here is a "health nut" version of a biscuit mix. If you do not want to use this recipe, it may give you some ideas anyway.......

8 cups whole wheat pastry flour or whole wheat all purpose flour
5 T. baking powder
1 T. salt
1 to 2 cups dry milk powder (optional*)
1 1/2 cup oil or butter

Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. Cut in the oil or butter to a fine texture. Store tightly covered in the refrigerator.

To use:

For biscuits, use three cups mix to 2/3 cup milk or water, * depending on if you used dried milk in the mix.

is "T." table spoon?

and i thought transfat was worse than sat fat... is it?
 
Well, the science is still out on which is worse. They both have bad points.

Most cooks are partisan against trans-fat as they tend to prefer/respect the natural product and its qualities over mass-production chemically altered shortening.

I prefer the flavor of the natural saturated fats such as pork lard and butter to shortening. Pork lard is actually lower in saturated fat than butter and lower cholesterol as well.

thymeless
 
bethzaring said:
Here is a "health nut" version of a biscuit mix. If you do not want to use this recipe, it may give you some ideas anyway.......

8 cups whole wheat pastry flour or whole wheat all purpose flour
5 T. baking powder
1 T. salt
1 to 2 cups dry milk powder (optional*)
1 1/2 cup oil or butter

Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. Cut in the oil or butter to a fine texture. Store tightly covered in the refrigerator.

To use:

For biscuits, use three cups mix to 2/3 cup milk or water, * depending on if you used dried milk in the mix.

how many buscuits will that make? how much of it would i need to use to get 1000 calories?
 
MERTON said:
how many buscuits will that make? how much of it would i need to use to get 1000 calories?

Merton, the entire 8 cup biscuit mix would be about 5085 calories (2640 cal for the whole wheat pastry flour and 2445 cal for the butter. A three cup batch of biscuits would be about 2000 calories ( 1906 cal for the mix and 100 cal for the 2/3 cup whole milk).

So, 1000 calories would be 1/2 of the 3 cup biscuit mix. Depends on how thin you roll the dough, but 1/2 inch thick dough would make about 18 biscuits, so 9 biscuits would be about 1000 calories.

In making this 3 cup biscuit mix, I would use 2/3 cup buttermilk in place of the whole milk, and add 1/2 teaspoon baking soda to the dry mix. Whole grain products benefit from any bit of leavening power you can give them.:rolleyes:

Any other questions?
 
yeah... how do you find the calorie value of these things?

what's the caloric value of 12" cake of cornbread? (that's 2 eggs and 2 cups of cornmeal worth of cornbread... i'm not sure of the other ingreadients.)


how big a bowl is required to store the whole amount that recipe called for?

should i add eggs or butter to it? how many?
 
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MERTON said:
...what's the caloric value of 12" cake of cornbread? (that's 2 eggs and 2 cups of cornmeal worth of cornbread... i'm not sure of the other ingreadients.)


how big a bowl is required to store the whole amount that recipe called for?

Depends on the rest of the recipe such as how much sugar! I make a sweet cornbread that's 3260 calories for the whole thing.
 
MERTON said:
yeah... how do you find the calorie value of these things?

what's the caloric value of 12" cake of cornbread? (that's 2 eggs and 2 cups of cornmeal worth of cornbread... i'm not sure of the other ingreadients.)


how big a bowl is required to store the whole amount that recipe called for?

should i add eggs or butter to it? how many?


Well, I looked on the side of the whole wheat pastry flour bag, and it said...serving size= 1/3 cup
and under "amount per serving" it said. calories 110, so I extrapolated it from there. As for the milk, I have an old nutrition textbook that has an appendix that gives the "nutritive values of the edible part of foods".

To find the caloric value of cornbread, you need to find the caloric value of each ingredient, and add it all together.

If you are referring to the 8 cup biscuit mix, the size would about equal half a 5 pound bag of flour, you need a container with a tight fitting lid. No, you do not add eggs to make biscuits, and the butter is already in the mix, do not add more.
 
I have MasterCook 7.0. I don't use it for recipes, just to calculate nutritional values. I key in the ingredients and their quantities along with the number of servings and I get all the nutritional value I want and more.
 
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