A bachelor friend of mine wanted to help cook dinner, so I put him in charge of biscuits. He’d never baked in his life, and pasta is one of his most complicated meals.
While I stirred and prepped other things, I walked him through the process. He’s pouring things into the bowl at my direction, and it became clear that he’d never actually encountered flour before.
At one point, he looks into the bowl and stares in amazement. “It’s just powders….you put these powders in the bowl and it makes biscuits…that’s amazing!”
I thought about it, and that’s almost true. These were traditional scratch-made biscuits, with butter and milk, but it got me thinking.
You could make tasty real food biscuits with a just add water mix, except for the butter. That’s the tricky part…now made easy with powdered butter.
I’ve been experimenting with cooking with butter powder, for both emergency preparedness and outfitting our camping kitchen. My very first attempt at just add water biscuits was a huge success!
Are they the same as a truly scratch biscuit made with cold butter carefully cut into the dough? Nope. But they’re still darn good, and underneath a sausage gravy, it’d be hard to tell the difference.
Most homemade just add water biscuit mixes have you take a standard biscuit recipe and substitute shortening (or butter flavored shortening) for the butter. Toss the whole mess into a food processor, and you get a powder with tiny flecks of shortening in it. The shortening doesn’t spoil, so you can pack that into a jar and store it in the pantry ready to go, just add water and bake.
I hate shortening. Beyond the fact that hydrogenated oils are horrible for your health, they just taste horrible. You can butter flavor the shortening all you want, but you might as well be sugar-coating a turd.
Besides that, it seems a bit messy to store a baking mix with greasy hunks of shortening mixed in.
Butter powder is different. Fluffy, tasty and actually made out of real butter with nothing crazy mixed in. For the most part, it’s just butterfat with a boatload of dried milk powder mixed in, which results in a powder that bakes up like a mixture of milk and butter.
Milk and butter in one, all dried and ready to go for my mix? Perfect!
Light and fluffy butter powder
This recipe is for a single batch of biscuits, but you can always make it in bulk. Mix it up one batch at a time and just store it in individual jars, and then you’ve got a dump and go solution for dinner biscuits.
These are not “drop biscuits” but actually rolled biscuits. A single batch made 5, cut out with a wide mouth mason jar.
Just add water and you've got biscuits ready to go! This is a single batch recipe, that yields 5 large biscuits. Just add 1 cup of water, stir, roll out and bake. If you're making this in bulk, prepare by adding 1 cup water to 2 1/2 cups mix.
Homemade Biscuit Mix
Ingredients
Instructions
Notes
Nutrition Information:
Serving Size:
1 grams
Amount Per Serving:
Unsaturated Fat: 0g 
Kate McClain
I buy Pioneer for less than $4 and make biscuits, pancakes, waffles, cinnamon rolls and gray and all are delicious! Just add water.
Lori
Curious. What about adding powdered buttermilk to this recipe? Or does the powdered butter have enough milk in it? Thank you for all the great info on butter powder. I’ve been trying to make a shelf-stable baking mix for years. Just an hour ago, I got a whim to google butter powder and was amazed at what came up! Ive used powdered buttermilk in the past with success. Do you think it unnecessary to add when using butter powder? Thank you!
Admin
I haven’t tried it, but it could work. Let me know if you have any luck!
Tonya l. Welsh
Thank you for the biscuit recipe. When this chaos started this year I bought powdered everything . I’m 78 and have never used powdered anything. Now I’m lost at how to use all the powdered egg/cream/butter and etc. any recipes I would love. Thank you
Amy
Your just add water idea is so great!
I know you made these as rolled biscuits, but I’m wondering if they would work as drop biscuits? Thanks
Neria
No milk powder at all?
Administrator
The butter powder actually already has milk powder in it.
Noreen Warrick
We were looking for a recipe for a Winnie the Pooh themed baby shower and stumbled onto your website. Your recipe was perfect for our “Biskits and Hunny” favors. We made a batch of mix for each guest, put the mix in quart zipper bags and put those and the baking instructions in 5×7 burlap sacks. We set these next to 4oz honey pots with local honey and wooden honey dippers. Your recipe is easy and tastes great for a ready-mix. It is particularly good with a nice jam. I didn’t use a rolling pin to make mine, instead simply pressing the dough into a 3/4 inch thick circle. Easy-peasy. Thanks for sharing.
Ashley Adamant
Wonderful! So glad you put it to good use!
Melissa
I use Hudson Cream Self Rising Flour and Heavy cream to make biscuits, about 2 cups of the SR Flour and a cup of Heavy Whipping Cream. Bake in a lightly greased iron skillet. Best you will ever have.
Administrator
Thanks for sharing.