Pancakes are HUGE in this house. Huge. Alison can kill six at one sitting. But we all know food prices continue their ascent and I'm always looking for ways to save money on food, anyway I can.
Tonight I finally had the chance to try making homemade Bisquick pancake mix. My oldest daughter sent me a link to Fake-It Frugal, a blog by a woman that home makes tons of things we use every day. It wasn't enough to take her word for it, I had to try for myself and I was thrilled to discover 1) I had all the ingredients on hand already; 2) when I finished mixing the bowl of powder, I had three plastic bags with seven (7) cups each of pancake mix! All for just rooting around in the cupboards and mixing it up by hand.
You'll need:
1 Bag of Flour (5lb. bag)
5 Teaspoons Salt
20 Teaspoons Sugar
2/3 Cup Baking Powder
2 Cups Shortening (Crisco Style, no butter or margarine)
I got out my biggest mixing bowl. I'm a neat freak and was surprised to find how LITTLE a mess this makes during the mixing process.
Combine the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly with a whisk. Then add the 2 cups of shortening (I used butter-flavored Crisco), took off the rings and dug in, mixing until there were no discernable chunks of Crisco. If you grab a handful and can make a little ball, you're there. Then just pick up handfuls and grind it in your hands, rubbing back and forth until you have "sifted" every bit of it.
You're done. That's all there is. The original blogger found that she had three bags with eight cups of the mix in each bag. I measured out seven cups in each bag. Still, I can live with seven cups per bag when I didn't have to spend a dime and I have (now, after dinner tonight!) have 2 1/2 bags. I'm storing them in the freezer to keep them fresh and they take up a really small place in the door.
Now, the cost. If you had to buy the ingredients in the store, you'll spend, max, $6-7 dollars for everything and you're only using a small portion of each, save for the 5 lb. bag of flour.
Pancakes: 2 Cups pancake mix, 1 Cup milk, 2 eggs.
For dinner I made double the recipe and it made about 20 pancakes.
BUT, the real test was at dinner and I'm proud to announce that there is not ONE single pancake left. That is what I call getting my money's worth. I do apologize, however, for how they LOOK--I never claimed to craft beautiful food. Only EDIBLE food. :o) Enjoy!
