Last September White Lily Flour celebrated National Biscuit Month with a campaign called "Save The Biscuit". The goal was not only to celebrate the "iconic" quick bread, but to put the spotlight on memorable times spent in the kitchen sharing family meals or learning new cooking techniques. Well, it's March. I obviously missed the boat on the "Save The Biscuit" campaign, but White Lily noticed I'd been having fun with their flour these past few weeks and offered to let me host a giveaway. So in honor of all National Biscuit Months past and future, here's a fun giveaway from White Lily.
For a chance to win a bag of White Lily Self-Rising Flour, plus an assortment of baking utensils to help you make the best biscuits ever, leave a comment before midnight this Friday telling me who taught you to bake or what motivated you to get in the kitchen and try it if you happen to be self-taught. I'll be pick a random comment on Saturday morning and notify the person that day. Good luck!
In the meantime, here's a recipe you might want to try yourself or pass on to someone who is just learning how to bake. It is probably White Lily's most basic biscuit recipe, as it only calls for three ingredients -- four if you brush the tops with melted butter. The biscuits are perfect, but if you want to try something more complex, White Lily has loads more recipes for biscuits including Touch of Grace Biscuits and Blueberry.
Recipe
White Lily Flour "SaveThe Biscuit!" Giveaway
Ingredients
- 2 cups White Lily® Enriched Bleached or Unbleached Self-Rising Flour
- ¼ cup Crisco® All-Vegetable Shortening or ¼ of a stick
- ⅔ to ¾ cups buttermilk or milk
- Melted butter for brushing on at the end
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 500°F. Coat baking sheet with cooking spray or line with parchment.
- Measure flour into large bowl. Cut in shortening with pastry blender or 2 knives until crumbs are the size of peas. Blend in just enough milk with fork until dough leaves sides of bowl.
- Turn dough onto lightly floured surface. Knead gently 2 to 3 times. Roll dough to ½-inch thickness. Cut using floured 2-inch biscuit cutter. Place on prepared baking sheet 1 inch apart for crisp sides or almost touching for soft sides.
- Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until golden brown.
Notes
1. GARLIC CHEESE BISCUITS: Stir in 1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese before adding milk. Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto prepared baking sheet. Bake as directed above. Combine ¼ cup melted butter and ¼ teaspoon garlic powder. Brush on warm biscuits.
2. ALL-PURPOSE FLOUR: Combine 2 cups flour, 1 tablespoon baking powder and 1 teaspoon salt before cutting in shortening. Follow directions above.
cori says
My mom has always baked, and I went to culinary school and found that baking was a way to calm down after a day of crazy cooking and sweating.
jenny says
I just put white lily flour on my list, to make the self rising flour and cream biscuits mentioned recently by Nathalie DuPree, two ingredients!
barbara n says
Coming from a family of 7 we rarely went out to eat and we all had to help in the kitchen....but to this day I remember and treasure my mom teaching me bake!
Katie M says
I remember baking with my Mom when I was little. Among other things, I remember her teaching me to pack the brown sugar when measuring and to level off the flour with a knife.
Phyllis says
I owe credit to my home ec teacher.
Phyllis says
I watched my grandmother make biscuits in her giant yellow Pyrex bowl, using lard and flour sifted in her Hoosier cabinet. It amazed me that such a simple recipe could make her flaky biscuits. I inherited her bowl, but I still haven't mastered her biscuits.
Diane says
Delicious looking biscuits......
My grandma was my biggest baking inspiration I could never get enough of her warm and gooey Chocolate Chip Cookies as a kid I can still smell how wonderful her house smelled as she baked her magic!
Oh how I would love just one more day to be in her kitchen while she baked and made us memories !
katherine d says
my mom always had me in the kitchen - i learned everything i know from her
katherinedibello (at) gmail (dot) com
Juli says
my mom taught me to bake, and she's a wonderful baker, but biscuits came from a can in our house. sorry!
Sherry says
My grandma was my biggest baking inspiration. But when I got my own apartment in college is when I really started learning and practicing both baking and cooking.
Linda K. says
I just started baking cookies as a kid and loved it.
Carole Resnick says
My grandmother, Rose Becker Cornsweet, and her four sisters, my great aunts, tought me how ro cook and bake.
Susan says
My Mom and Grandpa taught me to bake... Grandpa specialized in crescent rolls that I still can't duplicate and Mom taught me to bake cookies!
Elaine says
A family friend started me baking, and when my mother realized I enjoyed it, she encouraged it, then came the love of cooking! Definitely two different kitchen activities!
tiffany says
My mom taught me to cook from an early age. We used to bake cookies and cakes together.
Julie says
I am self-taught, and it was probably the Little House on the Prairie books and all those delicious descriptions of food that motivated me.
Martha in Georgia says
My mom was not much of a baker and was not interested in learning. I'm so grateful that she allowed me to experiment and bake. I started making cookies at about age 10 and have expanded my baking repertoire a bit - but cookies are still my FAVORITE treat to bake.
I did learn that White Lily is the ONLY flour to buy to make biscuits!
April says
My Mom taught all three of her children how to bake. When we would tell her we were bored during summer vacation she would teach us how to make something else. She was the best baker ever! Even my Grandma (her Mom) said so.
Kathy G. says
My mom taught me to bake. I've learned lots more from reading baking books and watching cooking shows such as Good Eats.
pitpat says
I don't know who taught me to bake. My mother baked. I started baking when I moved out of the house. I bake now because I know the quality of the ingredients I use. It's cheaper to bake my own sweet treats.
Mary says
My grandmother (Mom's mother) provided the inspiration, but I'm pretty much self-taught from reading and watching cooking shows in the past -- I prefer the 1990's-era PBS shows (Julia Child, Marcia Adams, Nathalie Dupree, and others) to the celebrity chef / competition-format Food Network type of shows.
Arthur M. says
I taught myself. I always liked to cook but stayed away from baking. One day I said enough is enough and just started baking. Lots of mistakes in the beginning, but now I have even developed some recipes of my own creation.
Jubes says
I am self taught, but my grandfather who was a baker was my inspiration!
Susan C says
My grandma taught me to bake, and I perfected my skills by trial & error, with some help from my dad, who was a great baker.
Martha in KS says
I'm from a big family & we had no choice but to help in the kitchen - which I'm now thankful for. But I became interested in cooking from watching Frugal Gourmet, Julia Child & Galloping Gourmet in the early days of food tv.
Jenny says
I just love sweets! So i started baking in med school to feed my midnight cravings while studying 🙂
Cynna says
My mom and dad taught me to bake!
Kristen says
My mom! Some of my favorite memories of her are of the two of us in the kitchen 🙂
Caley says
My mom taught me to bake. She is the queen of fearlessly changing recipes to suit tastes and ingredients, and it seems that she never fails! 🙂
Ashley says
I learned to bake from watching my Mom.
Shelly says
My Grandma taught me to bake!
Margot C says
My Mom taught me to bake and she was the best; though I try.
Judy says
My grandmother gave me the love of baking. I guess I started by making 'mud pies' outside in the sand when I would go over as a toddler to play. I was always so proud of my 'mud pies'! I absolutely love to bake. The kitchen is my very favorite room in the house. I believe I would rather bake than cook. I make all my own hamburger buns, breads and sweet rolls. I make everything from scratch.
Marsha M. Los Angeles CA says
My mother would let my sister and me bake cookies with her at Christmastime. I never did bake or cook on my own until I got married. Then I just did it from memory of meals my mother had made, and started baking by trying recipes that I thought sounded good. Been nearly 44 years now!!
Beth L says
My mom and grandma taught me how to bake - I also learned through 4-H. They all taught me well.
Sue says
I don't remember not baking. My Mom wasn't much of a cook or baker so I'm thinking it was mostly self motivation that got me in the kitchen figuring it out. We were given pretty much free rein to try what we wanted as long as we cleaned up after ourselves.
Jennie says
My grandmother took turns having me and my siblings over on the weekends. We always made apple pie. We made the extra crust into cookies with jam in the center. Great memories. No other bakers in the family!
Dorothea says
I guess I'd have to say that James Beard taught me how to bake - his recipe for Cream Biscuits was one of the first that I ever tried when I was first learning how to bake. It was delicious and foolproof. I was on my way to being the self-taught and happy baker that I am today! That first biscuit recipe was many years ago, and somewhere along the way, I discovered White Lily flour - which I love. I can't always find it in the stores here in the Northwest - but I grab a bag when I do!
Gianna says
I watched my parents cook when I was younger and then took an interest in it. I am mostly self taught.
Jennifer says
My mom taught me to make cookies when I was young, however, I learned most of my baking as an adult, when I was a stay-at-home.
Mary says
My mom involved me in baking when I was a child and eventually I took over all the baking, to my father's delight. Even to this day, although I enjoy cooking, I LOVE baking!
Kari M says
Growing up my Dad did the baking. Now we share tips & tricks.
rachel says
My mom showed me the basics but let me experiment away!
Terri says
I taught myself to bake when I was a teenager. I'm not sure what sparked my interest!
Robin M says
My mom was the one that got usin the kitchen. With my brothers she wanted to make sure they knew how to cook atleast one thing. The older I have got the more that I love to cook and to learn new things and to try new things. I love to bake or cook up something for big family meals or special holidays.
Anne says
I was the first in my family to cook and bake; my mother didn't really enjoy it, and my siblings don't, either. When I was a young woman first out on my own, I became interested in both cooking and baking, and my biggest influences were Julia Child and Jacques Pepin. Back then, they were among the rare cooking shows on TV, and when VHS emerged, I began recording the shows, watching over and over to learn their techniques. To this day, I still employ the basic techniques I learned from those two pioneers, and I owe them a great debt of thanks. I wish today's TV cooking personalities put more emphasis on technique and less on schtick and flash, but that's another story!
Jan Harris says
Hi Anna. My Mom was a great baker, guess it's inherited. Like you, I love to bake cookies. I'd love to try White Lily, you can't buy it here in Northern California. Plus the packaging is so pretty.
Teresa says
My mom! Plus extensive reading of food blog, cookbook, and magazine recipes!
Nancy Wilcox says
My Mom is the one who taught me to bake. She made wonderful cakes.
JuneC says
I had to learn on my own. My mother was king and queen of her kitchen and no one dared go there when she was cooking I love to eat, so I learned by buying lots of cookbooks, When I learned there was no Internet. I have become a much better and adventurous cook since I started reading blogs and watching cooking shows (also no cooking shows when I started to cook) Have heard a lot of good things about the biscuits make with White Lily. I have not seen the flour but I plan to really start looking for it
Mel C says
My dad is the one who taught me to bake. After he married my mother they moved to New York. Dad would bake the most amazing biscuits, breads and rolls. He always made my mother bring him back White Lily flour whenever she went back to Florida.
Cindi says
My mom taught me to bake. She is more interested in cooking, so was happy to turn the baking over to me. 🙂
Maria M. says
My mom taught me how to do most baking. We had a tradition that every year on the day after Thanksgiving (when most of the world was getting up early to shop), we would get up and make all of our Christmas cookies, up to 10 different kinds in a day. As I got older, I would bring friends over to bake with us. We still try to get together and do a few kinds together every year! I learned how to bake bread from my grandma, who had her recipe for "Christmas Bread" (hmm, holiday themed!) hand written on a piece of scrap paper without any directions, just rough ingredient measurements. That was the best way to learn how to knead bread - by feel and consistency rather than straight out of a cookbook!!
Tommy says
My mom taught me the basics of baking, mostly at Christmastime. But some more complicated baking is all self-taught!
CindyD says
My mother started me baking, probably pretty early. I am the oldest of five and she said I could fry hamburgers when I was 10!
Michele E says
Both my parents taught me how to cook. Dad had his specialty of Hillbilly Beans and pancakes. My mom made THE best cinnamon rolls ever. We hardly ever bought a mix, it was always scratch baking.
Larisa says
My mom taught me, specifically chocolate cake and chocolate chip cookies. I've expanded my repertoire since then, but biscuits are not something I've made more than twice!
Cheryl says
I learned the basics in the good old Home Ec classes we 7th and 8th grade girls had to take. I still make a bacon, tomato and cheese on an English muffin. I went on to take Home Ec classes all through high school then into college. I learned how to make both pie crust and biscuits in my Home Ec classes.
Rebecca says
It was definitely my mom, and she's still my favorite baking buddy to this day!
Sue Schwarz says
A wonderful friend in south Alabama taught me how to judge the texture of a biscuit mixture in order to get those light flaky morsels. My Mother, although a good cook, did not have the gift for biscuit making.
SugarFree says
I often tell people I began baking and cooking out of self-defense. 🙂 My mom, bless her, was a child of the Great Depression, and when she grew up she thought it the height of luxury to buy canned and prepared foods. Her idea of dessert was a can of fruit salad enshrined in Jell-o and salad was an iceberg lettuce cut in quarters and sunk beneath a wave of neon orange bottled 'French' dressing - LOL. Somewhere in my teens I got the idea there had to be more to food than this, and began reading cookbooks and 'experimenting'. There was the exploding duck incident, but other than that, baking went far more smoothly. I'd love to master biscuits, and have been told that White Lily is a MUST for them - but I've never been able to try it since it's not available here. So, thanks for doing this, and . . . all digits crossed.
Kara D says
My dad sparked my interest in the kitchen, making lots of pancakes and pizza with me as a kid. I am mostly self-taught, though, through blogs and cookbooks!
shirley says
Learned to bake while helping my mother when I was still a child. Later, I learned a lot more on my own and still like to bake on most occasions.
Maureen says
I began teaching myself to bake when I was younger. My mother had 7 kids in 10 years and well she was always busy so I as the oldest had to figure out how to make things.
Robin says
I baked my own birthday cake when I was 8 years old when my parents were out of town and we were being watched by my aunt.
nora says
My maternal granma used to make biscuits every day (I think for every meal!). I have distinct memories of standing on a "step stool chair" at her counter and making "baby biscuits" out of scraps of biscuit dough. My youngest uncles, that still lived at home and worked on the farm, would make a big deal about eating my masterpieces (tiny lumps of dough that were probably hard as rocks).
My godmother encouraged my next baking efforts. She used to do all the food for Shriners learning weekends. Desserts were my department (I was 10? maybe 13 at the end?). I'd make fudge ribbon cake, crumb cakes, and puddings full of fruit & nuts & marshmallow.
I love to bake and cook!
Marla Brinson says
Growing up in the South, all events centered around food. We had large family and friend gatherings for fish fries, where everything was fried but the sweet tea. Family reunions when everybody made their favorite dishes, and the family breakfast when I watched my grandmother hand mix and make biscuits in a large wooden bowl, putting them in an iron skillet to bake. My grandfather called them cat heads and would dip them in cane syrup.
I recently inherited that large wooden bowl and I have been hard at work perfecting my cat heads.
Carol says
Oh, I love biscuits! They are a real comfort food to me. I did a little cooking and baking with my Mom growing up, but I really had to learn myself as a young wife and mother. I always liked baking and cooking and wanted to learn all I could. It became a challenge to learn how to make everything I could homemade.
Anne says
My mom would teach all of the neighborhood kids how to cook during the summers. That's where I got my start.
Katie Stewart says
My mother taught me to bake. We were always allowed to help in the kitchen. When we were a bit older, if we wanted to bake something from a cookbook, she let us try and stayed out of our way unless we had a question. She is my culinary hero!!
JoeS says
Ham, Hot Bisquits and Gravy. Cooked in an old wood stove at the cabin our family built. About all I did was carry water from the spring or chop wood. Dad and Mom took turns making breakfast... But then we had Bisquits any time of the day.
gwen says
I actually started baking because my Mom didn't like to measure.....she was a great cook who didn't use recipes. So, starting around 8 I became the chief baker of the family; easy recipes at first and then I started to experiment on my own.
gloria says
I got inspired in eighth grade home ec. I had to make a meat pasty and it was delicious. My mom loved to bake, but didn't want us in the kitchen underfoot. I starting baking more in the mid 1990s when a friend of mine gave some Amish friendship starter to me. Then on a fluke I entered the State Fair competition and I've been baking every since. I am unable to find white lily in the Minneapolis area so I would love a free bag of it!
Holiday Baker Man says
You can't buy White Lily easily up here in Canada. Always wanted to bake and jumped in a few years ago...
karen says
I am self-taught, I baked my way through the dessert chapter of a Redbook cookbook that my non-cooking non-baking mother won at a school auction.
Nancy says
Grandmother - she made the most wonderfully buttery shortbread ever.
Marleen says
I'm from the olden days when they used to teach Home Ec in junior high. I learned to bake at school--chocolate chip cookies. Later, I taught myself to make homemade bread when I was married because I needed a hobby!! lol!!!
Ginnie says
It was my mom and grandmother that taught me bake. I remember my grandmother making bread when I was very little and my mom always had cake or pie for dessert every night.
MikeW says
Who taught me to bake? I can't remember not being in the kitchen & given some task to do. More to learn skills & techniques at first, but later making mix cakes on my own and then scratch baking.
Bunny says
I grew up in Georgia with both my mother and daddy making biscuits. White Lily was the ONLY flour in our house then, and it's the only flour I use now. They've gone on to be with the Lord, but passed along both their biscuit methods. I use the same ingredients but the amount of Crisco is different. You can't make a true Southern biscuit without White Lily - just can't be done!
Darlene says
My mother was definitely my motivation to bake (and cook) new recipes, although it wasn't because she was an excellent baker. I was bored eating the same dishes all the time and would try any new recipes I read in newspapers, magazines, or learned in Home Ec class. (I even won the Betty Crocker award in high school!)
Sarah says
My mom is the person who taught me and inspired me to start baking and cooking. I remember being young and whenever there was a birthday or celebration my mom would make a chocolate cake, and to this day the smell of cocoa powder reminds me of those days. She used to make wedding cakes and always be the foodie star in our family. She taught me how to make all sorts of desserts and dinners, she is the best cook I know and my best friend. She is my influence!