I love to bake and I know that baking from scratch is usually the most frugal option. But, I confess, I am often lazy and just don’t want to haul out flour and leavening and measuring cups. Duncan Hines could come to my rescue, but there is a better, healthier, less expensive way.
Mixes save the day.
About once a month, I spend an hour or so to make my own mixes. In assembly line fashion, I measure out the “dry team” of some of my favorite recipes. I make four to six batches of each, storing them in quart or gallon-sized freezer bags.I mark the bags clearly with ingredients to add and baking instructions.
I store my mixes in the freezer since I use whole wheat flour that doesn’t have as long a shelf-life as unbleached or all-purpose. This will also help you guard your stash against bugs or other unwanted critters.
Then when a morning comes when pancakes sound good or an evening brownie craving hits, I just mix up the “wet team,” dump in a bag of mix, and we’re good to go.
Some of our favorite mixes include:
- Basic Pancakes
- Whole Grain Pancakes
- Cocoa Brownies
- Mix and Match Muffins
- Maple-Oat Scones
- Biscuits
- Waffles
{ 12 trackbacks }
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for all the great links for making my own mixes! We defintely don’t want all the gunk that comes in the boxed mixes you get at the store. I try to make everything I can from scratch.
It tastes so much better, too!
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I really want to start making my own since it’s much more cost effective to buy a 25lb sack of flour at costco! Definitely going to give your mixes a try! Thank you!
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Jessica, this list looks great and convenient. Thanks. The only “mixes” I keep right now is a bisquick knockoff and have mixed together all the dry ingredients for my favorite bread in the bread machine. It really does save time.
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Thanks for putting these all in one place
I was alreadyplanning on making the mix and match muffins today anyway.
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Thank you for the links to homemade mixes. I put this post in my favorites so I can come back to it often.
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Wow! My husband and I were just talking last night about wanting to make up some mixes…and here’s a list! We make all this from scratch already, but haven’t done pre-made packs yet. One question though…when you take the mix out of the freezer do you have to wait for it to come to room temperature or can you go straight to mixing up?
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Jessica Reply:
July 6th, 2010 at 3:39 pm
I don’t wait any longer than it takes to mix the wet team.
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AllieZirkle Reply:
July 7th, 2010 at 9:49 am
You don’t have to wait at all. The milk and eggs are already chilly anyway.
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Anne Reply:
July 9th, 2010 at 2:05 pm
Awesome, thank you!!
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I just did this for the first time a couple of weeks ago! We ran out of pancake mix, so my breakfast-making husband didn’t know what to do. I said, “Make it from scratch!” He looked at me like I was crazy, and then went in search of the cookbooks. I took pity on him and made up a bunch of batches with labels so he can just dump and mix! I’m definitely going to make this a habit. Thanks for the new to me recipes!
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Jessica Reply:
July 8th, 2010 at 3:19 pm
Isn’t it funny how the thing that Gramma did second nature gets raised eyebrows today?
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Charlene @ A Virtuous Woman Reply:
July 9th, 2010 at 10:23 am
My husband had a similar reaction when he wanted to make pancakes one weekend and we had no baking or pancake mix. You would have thought I’d reinvented the wheel when I stirred some up from scratch.
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I have to tell you how much I’m enjoying all your discussions – I used to make mixes all the time and got out of the habit and regret it so much!
I’m planning on making several mixes over the next week or two [batch style - when I make one of something I'llmake several batches of mix as well, rather than planning a mixes 'session'] and I’m looking forward to the time and clean up savings I KNOW it to be [like freezer cooking – cook once, clean once, eat a dozen times LOL
We’ll be starting with a few basics:
pancake&waffle mix
cornbread mix
pizza dough mix
oatmeal bread mix
muffin mix
We’ll see what else becomes worthwhile – those are things we make fairly frequently so I know they should be first LOL
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When I started doing this based on your inspiration, I found I was much more likely to bake! I did biscuit mix, which we use for biscuits, but also for the topping of cheater pot pie (search for it on allrecipes.com). they use refrigerated biscuit dough, but it’s yummy w/ homemade biscuits on top.
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Great post! Thanks for putting everything in one place. One question, do you make your own mixes for things like Mexican food? I love to whip up enchiladas and taco salad because they are so quick and easy, but I don’t like having to use store-bought seasoning packs because of all the junk in them, but I like having one pre made pack that I can just dump in instead of digging around for and measuring a buck of different spices. Any suggestions?
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Jessica Reply:
July 8th, 2010 at 10:12 pm
I make up my own taco seasoning that is actually multi-purpose as a Mexican spice mix. I make a batch and keep it in the pantry. I do the same for fish spice. I never buy seasoning packets unless they are 1. free and 2. not full of junk. Hope that helps.
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I really need to do this for my bread machine. I don’t use it as often as I could because I hate to drag everything out. Makes sense to drag it out once and make up multiple mixes, then clean up just once!
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I could have sworn you had a post that had some info about making your own oatmeal packets (instead of buying the overly priced instant packets at the store), but I can’t find it! I’m I going nuts? Please help if you have such (much needed) info!
Thanks! Michelle
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Jessica Reply:
July 19th, 2010 at 9:19 pm
No, you’re not nuts. I just have two blogs. Heehee. Here’s the recipe for oatmeal packets
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Michelle Reply:
July 30th, 2010 at 6:11 am
Thanks! I knew it was one of your blogs, I guess I just didn’t look hard enough on both!
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these mixes are a great idea and also could be put in canning jars or clean mayo jars to save on the plastic bags.
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Lisa Hetherington Reply:
December 15th, 2010 at 10:26 am
@cara,
Great idea Cara!! I have a big empty PB jar in the dishwasher right now!
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Becky Reply:
July 18th, 2011 at 6:21 pm
@cara, I know I’m coming into this conversation waaay late, but I reuse the ziptop bags I use for dry mixes. Particularly if they are kept in the freezer (empty and full ones), they ought to be reusable several times at least. They also take up less space (when empty and when full) than other containers. Having said that, though, I think I might begin using the types of containers you mentioned for some mixes, especially those that won’t be in my way-too-small freezer.
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Jessica Reply:
July 18th, 2011 at 7:09 pm
@Becky, yes, the jars are definitely a good way to go. Most of my recipes are so large, that I’d have to have really big jars, though.
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Thanks for putting all of these together. We have recipes we use for most of these, but I’ll try some of these too. I had an idea when reading your post. When you make up your mixes each month, you could just print out your recipe and put it into the dry ingredient ziploc. Then you wouldn’t have to take the time to write everything out each time. I do that with dry ingredients I don’t use often–put little slips in them.
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Jessica Reply:
April 23rd, 2012 at 8:29 pm
@Stacy, great idea! Thanks for the suggestion. Right now I stash the empty bags in the freezer and reuse them. But, that’s a good idea, too.
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