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Hi! I have searched the Internet and cannot find this question addressed anywhere. I would like to make an alternative to Bisquick with ingredients that I trust, but I don't understand how these other mixes could work in the Bisquick recipes for the following reason: the Bisquick is all dry but the homemade mixes use regular shortening, butter, etc. Wouldn't the amount of liquid needed in the recipes be different? Is there anybody out there who has tried both?

Bisqick seems to be dry because of the way they've finely dispersed the fat in the flour. While I've never made the homemade mix myself, my mother used to, and she used Bisqick recipes without altering them. The taste was superior to recipes made with Bisquik itself. If you use butter rather than solid shortening, you'd probably have to reduce the liquid in the recipe a little bit.

Thank you, Avocet and annieski. I've always wondered how Bisquick manages to contain fat and still be shelf-stable. There you have it.

Bisquick wasn't originally kosher, because it contained lard. But sometime during the mid-20th century, General Mills replaced the lard with vegetable shortening, and Bisquick has been kosher ever since.

Since I have no experience with lard, I'd like to ask: I lard really shelf-stable?

Now that I'm bumping this thread, it ought to help in the search for a Bisquick substitute.

Highly refined hydrogenated lard is shelf stable. It can be bought  at supermarkets; Armour and Morrell are two widely available brands, and they come in one pound boxes, usually in the baking section. They are pure white and tasteless. Think Crisco, but harder. Some people like it for making flakey pie crusts. I think it's awful stuff.

Real lard is altogether different, with a gentle porkey flavor. Obviously, not something to indulge in often, but great used sparingly in certain savory dishes. I'm from Louisiana, and the Cajuns tend to use lard to fry things and make a roux.

There are plenty of copycat Bisquick recipes on the Net, or in cookbooks. I'm sure some are better than others.

If you want to use butter rather than hydrogenated fat, I suppose, you should leave out the fat, do the arithmetic, and add the fat when you make your biscuits or pancakes.

Jane, how do you narrow an EYB search to include only recipes for a baking mix like Bisquick?

If you want to find how to make an ingredient rather than recipes containing the ingredient, you would apply the filter "How to..." - you find it under Recipe types / Misc. Filters are in the right-side column on a laptop or tablet. On a phone you click the Filter menu in the green search bar. 

This is the Library search by Bisquick with the How to filter applied. It does include other baking mixes as they are a variant on the Bisquick name in the Ingredients database.

The "How to..." filter is a late addition to the ingredient categories so there are likely to be historic recipes that should have that tag applied. Just email us with the URL for that recipe and we will add it.

What if it's in one of the indexed books which I happen to have on my Bookshelf?

Jane, I posted the link to the recipe for Curious George cookies as a broken link - it is not. It is not broken if you want to make cartoon-character cookies.

It is broken, i.e. useless, if you want to make a baking mix from scratch - it should not be in the search results. This is true of quite a few recipes a the blog Bake at 350°, which include "How to" in the recipe name.

Could you fix this mess whenever you can?

I think the indexer of that blog was a bit over-enthusiastic in her application of the "How-to..." tag and we will get that sorted. Our instructions in the Indexing manual say "Only for recipes that are instructional/tutorial in nature, i.e., that explain and/or demonstrate techniques, or skills including "DIY"-type recipes for basic ingredients that don't fit under any other RTs, e.g., yogurt, vegan cheeses, non-dairy milks, etc.; also index any other RTs that apply. Do not include recipes that do not fit the above but have step-by-step photos or have "How to" in the title."

Though I'm wondering if you applied more than just the "How to..." tag when you saw that recipe in your results. You should also add Bisquick in the word search as well as the filter, so as not to see all 33,830 recipes with the "How to..." tag.

I'm a Brit, and I grew up in Hampshire, lard centre of the British Isles - home of the lardy cake, a yeast leavened bun with a richness, and a distinct flavour, due to lard being worked into the dough  before the final proving. This is a fairly convincing recipe, except that the local version where I grew up contains no dried fruit, but is made into individual finger rolls and has a thick layer of icing on top,. To be honest, I don't like them!

https://www.hobbshouseba...080775-lardy-cake-recipe

But I digress - the point is I'd never heard of hydrogenated lard, and a search suggests that it is not currently sold in the UK 

I used to buy Bisquick mix here, but stopped when they changed the pacakage instructions so I had to do serious arithmetic to work out how to use a part package,  Perhaps I should try one of the substitutes and follow instructions on the website with the reipe