Betty Crocker's New Cake Mix

[norgeway]

Most

Old ladies break every rule when making biscuits and get perfect results every time. Most keep a bowl full of self rising flour in their kitchen. They add a handful of crisco or lard. Pour some buttermilk on that then mix the milk and shortening together well then work in enough flour to get a soft dough working the dough three or more times as much as you are supposed too then pinch off the dough make the biscuits by hand and most bake them in a 500 degree oven when they are done they side more flour into the bowl on top of what's left for the next time

 

[appnut]

Oh good grief Hans,  That is breaking just about every rule.  But in some ways I don't blame them.  I kinda do drop biscuits like that and they aren't too bad. 

 

[nmassman44]

I can tell you first hand that I tried that cake mix at the top of the thread. I was intrigued at first when I saw it at the store. I bought the Yellow Cake and the Chocolate Devils Food one. I made the yellow cake with high hopes that maybe it would be good, but it wasn't. It was bland and OMG so dry. I baked it using a conventional bake instead of convection baking it so that might have caused it to dry out. Not even frosting it helped. Needless to say it went down the pig aka garbage disposal.

 

[norgeway]

I tried one too

It wasn't dry but it wasn't good either it had a artificial taste

 

[mikael3]

Speaking of grandmas that never measure anything...

 

My grandmother made excellent biscuits pretty much as you describe.  But she made them almost every day for decades—in other words, thousands of times.  I don’t make anything that frequently so I have to check myself with scales and measuring spoons and all that.  The problem with baking is you can’t adjust it at the end, the way you can with other things.  What you bake is what you eat.

 

[johnrk]

Cream Biscuits

I used to make biscuits intuitively because I made them almost daily for the ones I loved. No measurement.

For anyone who loves biscuits, check out James Beard's cream biscuit recipe, where he uses heavy cream instead of milk. They are amazing.

 

[frigilux]

I'm a fan of cream biscuits, as well. Have never made any other kind.

 

[lordkenmore]

Baking powder biscuits were somewhat common when I was growing up. My mother would make drop biscuits to round out a dinner. I think chilli was one such time. I think the recipe was probably Fannie Farmer (that was her basic cookbook). I think I even got tired of them at some point...but then later on embraced them again as something that could round out a meal.

 

I haven't baked them much in recent years. I had a phase of having them a year or so ago, although I'm sure that people in the south would be appalled with the recipe that used cooking oil and whole wheat flour. But it was a good match for the realities of today--whole wheat flour is healthier, and I don't keep solid cooking fat around (options all too expensive--like butter--or too unhealthy--like cheap margarine).

 

[lordkenmore]

It's interesting reading the comments about this cake mix above from people who hated it... I'd been half thinking maybe of getting a box to make myself a birthday cake when that horrible day rolls around again...but I won't bother now, and just keep my 20+ year streak of no birthday cakes intact.