How to Make Self Rising Flour

by Ken Jorgustin, Modern Survival Blog:

Self rising flour does not require yeast. Dry yeast has an approximate shelf life of about 4 months after it’s opened (and if kept refrigerated – although your own results may vary), while the shelf life of the key ingredient in self rising flour is about 2 years and does not require refrigeration.

So lets make some biscuits…

(Re-posted for your interest)

The key ingredient to self rising flour is baking powder. Baking powder is a leavening agent that releases carbon dioxide when moistened. This produces air bubbles in baked goods which cause them to expand and become lighter while baking.

Technical:

Baking powder contains three ingredients:

Sodium bicarbonate (Baking Soda)
Monocalcium phosphate (acid salt)
Cornstarch (filler and moisture absorbent)

Baking powder works by releasing tiny carbon dioxide gas bubbles into a batter or dough through a reaction between the baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) and acid/salt (monocalcium phosphate) when exposed to moisture, causing bubbles in the wet mixture to expand and thus leavening the mixture.

A beneficial aspect to utilizing baking powder to make a self rising flour is that it does not require refrigeration. It’s not a living organism like yeast. So long as you keep it dry, the unopened shelf life can be years (once opened it will lessen depending on environmental conditions).

To test your baking powder, add about 1/2 tsp to some hot water in a cup. If it foams and bubbles, it has enough zip left. If it just sits there, well, it’s no good…

Self Rising Flour Recipe
To make 1 cup of self rising flour, add 1 1/2 tsp baking powder and 1/4 (or 1/2) tsp salt. Stir/mix until well blended together. That’s it!

Self Rising Flour Biscuits Recipe
In the spirit of cross-training in the kitchen, I decided to try my hand at making something edible from my self rising flour. I actually surprised myself by successfully making a simple but tasty batch of biscuits.

All the ingredients used required no refrigeration, making this a reasonable food source for post-SHTF. I only cheated by using the oven for baking. However you could substitute by cooking over a fire (dutch oven?), or using a solar oven, or even improvising by using a covered pan on low heat over a hot burner.

This makes 8 or 9 biscuits.
First mix all the dry ingredients well.

2 cups flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 cup sugar
4 tbsp powdered butter (or 1/4-cup real butter)
1 tbsp powdered egg (or 1 real egg)

Then add 1 cup water and mix well.

This will produce a sticky blend of dough. Unlike a yeast mixture, the self-rising-flour does not ‘rise’ prior to cooking. The rise will happen as it cooks. I spooned the mixture into foil baking cups (they will stick to the paper ones) and set them in cupcake trays. I suppose you could use and shape aluminum foil in a pinch, or you could even spread the batter mixture into a do-it-yourself foil ‘cake’.

Bake at 375-degrees for 25-30 minutes until golden.

It doesn’t rise like a traditional loaf of bread would, but it makes for a decent tasty biscuit…

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