Baking mix and flour both produce baked goods. Baking mix contains flour plus other ingredients to allow users to quickly assemble quick bread and other baked items.
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Baking mix contains all-purpose flour, leavening agents, hydrogenated oil, salt and sugar. Commercial mixes such as Bisquik use baking soda, sodium aluminum phosphate and monocalcium phosphate for leavening and dextrose for sugar.
Most flour is made from wheat and processed to make cake flour, bread flour, whole wheat flour and all-purpose flour. Baking mix is made from all-purpose flour. Because flour does not contain added ingredients it has broader applications than baking mix, such as cookies, yeast breads, cakes and pastries.
Baking mixes are typically used to make quick breads such as biscuits, muffins and pancakes. Only milk, water or eggs need to be added to baking mix to make a basic quick bread dough.
Baking with flour requires cooks to measure and add their own leavening, fat, salt and sugar. Bakers can control the amounts of these ingredients to make a wider variety of baked goods than they can with baking mix. Baking with flour also allows cooks to make recipes lower in sodium, sugar and trans fats.