Skip to content
Maggie Ellery
Recipes

Master Baking Mix: The Homemade Biscuit Mix Behind a Hundred Breakfasts

Five ingredients make a big jar of all-purpose baking mix for biscuits, pancakes and anything that calls for a boxed baking mix, cup for cup.

By Maggie Ellery · Jump to recipe
A jar of homemade baking mix next to measuring spoons and flour on a wooden table

If you only make one jar from this blog, make this one. A master baking mix is flour, leavening, a little sugar and salt, with the fat already cut in. That last part is the whole trick: the slow, fiddly step of rubbing fat into flour is done once, on a quiet afternoon, and every breakfast after that starts halfway finished.

What it replaces

Any recipe that calls for a boxed all-purpose baking mix, the kind people use for biscuits, pancakes, dumplings, shortcakes and “impossible” pies, works with this mix cup for cup. You don’t need to convert anything.

Getting the texture right

The mix should look like fine, even crumbs, with no pea-sized lumps of shortening left. Three ways to get there:

  1. Pastry blender: the classic. Press and twist until the lumps disappear.
  2. Fingertips: rub flour and fat together quickly, lifting it as you go so it stays cool.
  3. Food processor: pulse 8–10 times in two batches. Stop as soon as it looks sandy; overworking warms the fat.

Why shortening and not butter? Shortening is shelf-stable, so the mix can live in a cupboard. Butter would need the fridge and would keep for weeks, not months.

Two breakfasts from one jar

Biscuits: 2¼ cups of mix and ¾ cup of milk. Stir just until it comes together, pat it out about ¾ inch thick, cut, and bake at 400°F for 8–10 minutes. For drop biscuits, use 1 cup of milk and skip the rolling and cutting.

Pancakes: 1 cup of mix, ¾ cup of milk, 1 egg and 2 tablespoons of oil. Stir until just combined. A few lumps are fine; overmixing is what makes pancakes tough.

How long it keeps

About 3 months in an airtight jar in a cool cupboard. Two things shorten it: warmth, which can turn the fat stale, and old baking powder, which loses its lift. In a warm kitchen, keep the jar in the fridge. If your baking powder is more than six months old, test a spoonful in hot water before you start: it should fizz right away.

The book has 40 baking and breakfast mixes, from cornbread and muffins to pancakes and bread-machine loaves.

Recipe

Master Baking Mix

Makes about 4¾ cups (20 servings)Jar: half-gallonKeeps 3 monthsVegetarian

In the jar

  • 4 cups all-purpose flour
  • ½ cup vegetable shortening
  • 2 tbsp baking powder
  • 2 tbsp granulated sugar
  • 2 tsp salt

Add on cooking day

  • milk
  • egg (for pancakes)
  • vegetable oil (for pancakes)

Make the mix

  1. 1Whisk the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt together in a large bowl.
  2. 2Cut in the shortening with a pastry blender or your fingertips until it looks like fine crumbs, with no lumps left.
  3. 3Store airtight in a cool place.

To use

  • Biscuits: stir 2¼ cups mix with ¾ cup milk, pat out, cut and bake at 400°F for 8–10 minutes.
  • Pancakes: whisk 1 cup mix, ¾ cup milk, 1 egg and 2 tbsp oil.
  • Use it cup for cup wherever a recipe asks for all-purpose baking mix.

From The Dry Mix Pantry Cookbook by Maggie Ellery

Keep reading