Self Rising Flour
I am always searching the net and cookbooks for muffin, quick bread, biscuits, and other breakfast and desert recipes. I rise very early to go to deliver newspapers (my "retirement" income), and when I get back home I want something hot out of the oven for breakfast.
Now lots of these recipes call for self rising flour, which has baking powder and salt already mixed in. Up until recently, I never saw the point of it for my purposes. For one thing, none of the self rising flours I know of are unbleached, the kind of flour I prefer.
For another, I already stock multiple flour varieties. All purpose, whole wheat, bread, cake, rye, and corn come to mind. There may be others. I saw no reason to add to my already overstocked pantry. <!--break-->
One morning, on the way home from work and with a taste for blueberry muffins, I stopped at Walmart. With the berries in my super jumbo cart, I wandered over to the baking isle. Looking at the two pound sack of self rising flour marked 99 cents, I thought: "what the heck."
Long story short: got home with the berries and the 99 cent sack of flour.
Squeezed the juice of a lemon, and a tsp. of vanilla into 3/4 cup of slightly warm milk. Added an egg.
Whisked 3/4 cup of sugar, zest of the juiced lemon, and about a tsp. of baking soda into 1 3/4 cup of the flour. I cut in 3 Tablespoons of butter and added about half the carton of berries.
Mixed the liquid with the flour, scooped the batter into 6 jumbo muffin cups, and had muffins for breakfast.
Ever since then I've baked biscuits, peach cobbler, and several varieties of muffins using cheap Walmart self rising flour with excellent results. Not having to add salt or baking powder means there are two less ingredients to forget to add. Too bad I still have to remember the sugar.
Another advantage is, I'm certain, that this flour is lower protein than the varieties of unbleached A.P I normally use, resulting in better texture.
I'm curious to hear the thoughts of any other home bakers out there.