Bisquick Who Knew?

Bisquick® is a pre-mixed baking mix sold by General Mills under its Betty Crocker brand and basically consists of flour, shortening, salt, baking powder — all in a box.

With a few added ingredients, as well: enriched flour bleached (wheat flour, niacin, iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid, partially hydrogenated soybean and/or cottonseed oil, leavening (baking soda, sodium aluminum phosphate, monocalcium phosphate), dextrose, salt.

If those ingredients sound overwhelming, bypass them and make your own pre-mix with flour, baking powder, salt and vegetable shortening. An online search will provide many homemade recipes. When stored in an airtight container, the mix keeps for several months in the pantry.

How Did Bisquick® Come About?

The recipe was stolen from a train dining car chef in 1930.

Sounds incredible, but it's true. The story is posted on the General Mills website. According to the story , one of their salesmen, Carl Smith, was on a train to San Francisco on a late evening. The dining car was closed, and Smith was hungry. A cook quickly produced hot biscuits for him. Smith was amazed that the cook could deliver fresh biscuits on such short notice.  He complimented the chef, who showed him how he had blended lard, flour, baking powder and salt, then stored the mixture in an ice chest to prepare fresh biscuits daily on the train.

In the Depression-era 1930s, there were no pre-mixed baking shortcuts, no cake, muffin or biscuit products. Recognizing the potential for such a product, Smith took the idea to a General Mills food scientist. Not only was creating the proper mix of ingredients needed, but the recipe had to make the end products taste as good, or better, than homemade.

Adapting the chef’s original, hydrogenated oil was used to eliminate the need for refrigeration. Bisquick® was officially introduced on grocers' shelves in 1931 and was first promoted for making biscuits, 90 seconds from package to oven. It was quickly used to prepare other baked goods — pizza dough, pancakes, dumplings, and cookies.

In 1981, the World’s Largest Peach Shortcake was created at the South Carolina Peach Festival. It was five layers, measured 25½ feet in diameter, and had more than four tons of Bisquick and nine tons of peaches.

Although the original recipe has changed over the years, the familiar yellow and blue package has been used to create an expanding variety of meals including pretzels, tortillas, pie crusts, gnocchi, churros as shown in this slideshow.

In the 1970's, the Bisquick® box had a recipe printed on it, the Bisquick® Impossible Quiche. “Impossible” since it made its own crust. While it baked in a hot oven, the mixture transformed into a thick quiche-like pie with a golden surface. There was no need to create a separate bottom crust before adding main ingredients, usually bacon, onion, eggs, milk, cheese, and Bisquick® mix. Once out of the oven and cooled, it sliced cleanly and released from the pan easily. This pseudo-quiche was a hit for many family meals and served as a main dinner course or for breakfast and lunch. Leftovers were enjoyed hot or cold.

The Impossible Quiche Recipe (makes 4-6 servings)

• 12 bacon strips, cooked to crisp, drained, and crumbled
• 1 C Swiss cheese, shredded (about 4 ounces)
• 1/3 C onion, diced
• 2 C milk
• 1 C Bisquick®
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/8 tsp ground black pepper

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Lightly grease a 10-inch pie plate.
3. Sprinkle crumbled bacon, shredded cheese, and diced onion (in that order) evenly over bottom of pie plate.
4. Beat eggs with salt and pepper;stir in milk.
5. Add Bisquick® and beat until smooth; pour over ingredients in pie plate.
6. Bake for 35 minutes or until a knife inserted in center of quiche comes out clean. Let cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes before slicing and serving.

Quiche Variations

After the quiche is assembled in the plate, scatter a cup of any coarsely chopped vegetables, alone or combined, onto the surface: frozen or fresh broccoli, sautéed fresh spinach, fresh green, red, or yellow sweet bell peppers, asparagus. In place of bacon, I've used pepperoni. The type of cheese can be varied such as cheddar and mozzarella.