Bisquick is a

baking mix A baking mix is a mixed formulation of ingredients used for the cooking of baked goods. Baking mixes may be commercially manufactured or homemade. Baking mixes that cater to particular dietary needs, such as vegan, gluten-free, or kosher baki ...

sold by

General Mills General Mills, Inc. is an American multinational corporation, multinational manufacturer and marketer of branded ultra-processed consumer foods sold through retail stores. Founded on the banks of the Mississippi River at Saint Anthony Falls in ...

under its

Betty Crocker Betty Crocker is a brand and fictional character used in advertising campaigns for food and recipes. The character was created by the Washburn-Crosby Company in 1921 to give a personalized response to consumer product questions. In 1954, Gener ...

brand, consisting of

flour Flour is a powder made by Mill (grinding), grinding raw grains, List of root vegetables, roots, beans, Nut (fruit), nuts, or seeds. Flours are used to make many different foods. Cereal flour, particularly wheat flour, is the main ingredie ...

shortening Shortening is any fat that is a solid at room temperature and is used to make crumbly pastry and other food products. The idea of shortening dates back to at least the 18th century, well before the invention of modern, shelf-stable vegetable ...

salt In common usage, salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl). When used in food, especially in granulated form, it is more formally called table salt. In the form of a natural crystalline mineral, salt is also known as r ...

sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose Glucose is a sugar with the Chemical formula#Molecular formula, molecul ...

and

baking powder Baking powder is a dry chemical leavening agent, a mixture of a carbonate or bicarbonate and a weak acid. The base and acid are prevented from reacting prematurely by the inclusion of a buffer such as cornstarch. Baking powder is used to increas ...

(a leavening agent).

History

According to General Mills, Bisquick was invented in 1930 after one of their top sales executives met an innovative train

dining car A dining car (American English) or a restaurant car (British English), also a diner, is a passenger railroad car that serves meals in the manner of a full-service, sit-down restaurant. These cars provide the highest level of service of any rai ...

chef, on a business trip. After the sales executive complimented the chef on his deliciously fresh

biscuit A biscuit is a flour-based baked food item. Biscuits are typically hard, flat, and unleavened. They are usually sweet and may be made with sugar, chocolate, icing, jam, ginger, or cinnamon. They can also be savoury, similar to crackers. ...

s, the dining car chef shared that he used a pre-mixed biscuit batter he created consisting of lard, flour, baking powder and salt. The chef then stored this pre-mixed biscuit batter on ice in his kitchen, enabling him to bake fresh biscuits quickly on the train every day. As soon as the sales executive returned from that business trip, he “created” Bisquick. The recipe was adapted, using hydrogenated oil, thus eliminating the need for refrigeration. Bisquick was officially introduced on grocers' shelves in 1931. Though first promoted for only baking biscuits ("90 seconds from package to oven", the slogan read), Bisquick was soon used to prepare a wide variety of baked goods from

pizza Pizza is an Italian cuisine, Italian, specifically Neapolitan cuisine, Neapolitan, dish typically consisting of a flat base of Leavening agent, leavened wheat-based dough topped with tomato, cheese, and other ingredients, baked at a high t ...

dough Dough is a malleable, sometimes elastic paste made from flour (which itself is made from grains or from leguminous or chestnut crops). Dough is typically made by mixing flour with a small amount of water or other liquid and sometimes includes ...

pancakes A pancake, also known as a hotcake, griddlecake, or flapjack, is a flat type of batter bread like cake, often thin and round, prepared from a starch-based Batter (cooking), batter that may contain eggs, milk, and butter, and then cooked on a ...

dumplings Dumplings are a broad class of dishes that consist of pieces of cooked dough (made from a variety of starchy sources), often wrapped around a filling. The dough can be based on bread, wheat or other flours, or potatoes, and it may be filled wi ...

to snickerdoodle cookies.

Substitution

of Bisquick can be substituted by a mixture of of flour, teaspoons of baking powder, teaspoon of salt, and tablespoons of oil or melted butter (or by cutting in tbsp

Crisco Crisco is an American brand of shortening that is produced by B%26G Foods. Introduced in June 1911 by Procter & Gamble, it was the first shortening to be made entirely of vegetable oil, originally cottonseed oil. Additional products marketed ...

or lard).

Ingredients

The ingredients in Bisquick Original consist of bleached

wheat flour Wheat flour is a powder made from the grinding of common wheat used for human consumption. Wheat varieties are called "soft" or "weak" if gluten content is low, and are called "hard" or "strong" if they have high gluten content. Hard flour, or ...

(enriched with

niacin Nicotinic acid, or niacin, is an organic compound and a vitamer of vitamin B3, an essential human nutrient. It is produced by plants and animals from the amino acid tryptophan. Nicotinic acid is also a prescription medication. Amounts f ...

iron Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's o ...

, thiamine mononitrate,

riboflavin Riboflavin, also known as vitamin B2, is a vitamin found in food and sold as a dietary supplement. It is essential to the formation of two major coenzymes, flavin mononucleotide and flavin adenine dinucleotide. These coenzymes are involved in ...

and

folic acid Folate, also known as vitamin B9 and folacin, is one of the B vitamins. Manufactured folic acid, which is converted into folate by the body, is used as a dietary supplement and in food fortification as it is more stable during processing and ...

corn starch Cornflour, cornstarch, maize starch, or corn starch (American English) is the starch derived from corn (maize) grain. The starch is obtained from the endosperm of the seed, kernel. Corn starch is a common food ingredient, often used to thick ...

dextrose Glucose is a sugar with the molecular formula , which is often abbreviated as Glc. It is overall the most abundant monosaccharide, a subcategory of carbohydrates. It is mainly made by plants and most algae during photosynthesis from water an ...

palm oil Palm oil is an edible vegetable oil derived from the mesocarp (reddish pulp) of the fruit of oil palms. The oil is used in food manufacturing, in beauty products, and as biofuel. Palm oil accounted for about 36% of global oils produced from o ...

, leavening (

baking soda Sodium bicarbonate (IUPAC name: sodium hydrogencarbonate), commonly known as baking soda or bicarbonate of soda (or simply “bicarb” especially in the UK) is a chemical compound with the formula NaHCO3. It is a salt (chemistry), salt compose ...

, sodium aluminum phosphate,

monocalcium phosphate Monocalcium phosphate is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula Ca(H2PO4)2 ("AMCP" or "CMP-A" for anhydrous monocalcium phosphate). It is commonly found as the monohydrate ("MCP" or "MCP-M"), Ca(H2PO4)2·H2O. Both salts are colourless so ...

canola oil Close-up of canola blooms Canola flower Rapeseed oil is one of the oldest known vegetable oils. There are both edible and industrial forms produced from rapeseed, the seed of several cultivars of the plant family Brassicaceae. Historical ...

, salt, sugar,

DATEM DATEM (diacetyl tartaric acid ester of mono- and diglycerides, also E472e) is an emulsifier primarily used in baking to strengthen the gluten network in dough. It is added to crusty breads, such as rye bread, rye, to impart a springy, chewy textu ...

, and distilled

monoglyceride Monoglycerides (also: acylglycerols or monoacylglycerols) are a class of glycerides which are composed of a molecule of glycerol linked to a fatty acid via an ester bond. As glycerol contains both primary and secondary alcohol groups two differe ...

s. Bisquick Heart Smart is formulated with canola oil resulting in less

saturated fat A saturated fat is a type of fat in which the fatty acid chains have all single bonds between the carbon atoms. A fat known as a glyceride is made of two kinds of smaller molecules: a short glycerol backbone, and fatty acids that each cont ...

and 0g

trans fat Trans fat is a type of unsaturated fat that occurs in foods. Small amounts of trans fats occur naturally, but large amounts are found in some processed foods made with partially hydrogenated oils. Because consumption of trans fats is associated ...

. Bisquick also comes in a gluten-free variety, which uses

rice flour Rice flour (also rice powder) is a form of flour made from finely milled rice. It is distinct from rice starch, which is usually produced by steeping rice in lye. Rice flour is a common substitute for wheat flour. It is also used as a thickening ...

instead of regular flour.

References

External links

*
Official website Bisquick RecipesHow Bisquick got its start
{{pancakes General Mills brands Products introduced in 1931 Baking mixes American pancakes