Make Ahead Mixes (Or – It’s Not About Cute Part 2)

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Life gets busy sometimes. And when life gets busy it’s easy to think we don’t have time to make baked goods from scratch anymore and we just want to grab a ready-to-go cake mix from the cupboard.

But who says we can’t make our own versions of premade cake mixes, muffin mixes, or cookie mixes when we do have a little spare time? You can accomplish this same thing by taking one of your favorite recipes and assembling the dry ingredients ahead of time. Then when the days are busy, you can save yourself the step of measuring the dry ingredients. They’ll be all ready to be dumped into a mixing bowl – just like the store bought mixes!

Homemade Baking Mixes

In the last post (Sometimes It’s Not About Cute – Part 1) I shared some pictures of my very ordinary looking mixes and had to get some feelings off my chest about not letting yourself get bogged down by the “cute” factor. My mixes go in plastic containers from the dollar store with post-it note labels. Because why? Because I’m busy! That was the whole point of making the mixes, after all, so don’t waste your precious time with bows and ribbons and fancy labels if you don’t have the time to mess around with those things.

So as promised, here are the recipes for the containers pictured in the first post so that we can turn something like this . . . .

homemade muffin mix

Into goodies like these . . . .

blueberry muffins

#1 Corn Muffins

Ever since I discovered a good recipe for a Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix Clone, I have been making my own. Sometimes I like to mix two or three batches ahead of time and it’s just like having a few boxes of store bought Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix in the cupboard.

Combine:
2/3 cup flour
1/2 cup Yellow Cornmeal
3 Tbl Sugar
2 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 tsp Salt

Put these ingredients in a container. If you have a container with a tight fitting lid, give it a good shake to really mix the ingredients together well. Store at room temperature.

Label with info to add these ingredients when making the corn muffins:
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 Egg
1/3 cup Milk

Also put on your label to bake the muffins at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.

Copycat Jiffy Corn Muffin Recipe

#2 Brownies

This is my favorite homemade recipe for making Brownies because it uses chocolate chips instead of cocoa powder.

Combine:
2/3 cup Flour
3/4 cup Sugar
1/4 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 tsp Salt

Put these ingredients in a container and if it has a tight fitting lid, give the container a shake to mix everything well.

Label with info to add these ingredients when making the brownies:
4 Tbl Butter
1 cup Chocolate Chips
1/4 tsp Vanilla Extract
2 Eggs

Melt the butter and chips together in the microwave. Add the vanilla, eggs, and the mix. Bake in a greased 8×8 pan at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.

homemade brownies

#3 BLUEBERRY MUFFINS

This is the blueberry muffin recipe I use that’s from one of my many church cookbooks.
(I love church cookbooks!!).

Combine:
2 cups flour
1-1/2 cups Sugar
2 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Salt

Put these ingredients in a container and if it has a tight fitting lid, give the container a shake to mix everything well.

Label with info to add these ingredients when making the blueberry muffins:
1/2 cup Milk
2 Eggs
1 cup Butter – melted (1 stick)
Stir in 1 cup blueberries when all the other ingredients are mixed.

Bake the muffins at 350 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes.

So those are a few of the recipes that I have turned into mixes simply by mixing the dry ingredients ahead of time, and then giving myself some cheat notes about what wet ingredients still need to be added and how long to cook them.

I also do this for cookies sometimes, just using the tried and true Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe in a method rather like the gift jars, except as you probably know by now, I don’t worry too much about the layers, because it’s not really about cute!

You might also like to read:

It’s Not About Cute – Part 1

It’s Not About Cute – Part 3

Need a few more bright ideas?
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