Just Add Flour

Hello! Welcome to Beyond Soy!

We make a lot of food at home from scratch. From scratch. Those two words are quite possibly some of the most intimidating words in the kitchen. Making something from scratch sounds complicated! But what does it really mean?

From scratch merely means adding a couple of separate ingredients instead of using a mix. At its essence, it means using your own flour (and maybe a few other items).

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Here is a great example: The waffles that we make from scratch call for flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, vanilla extract, milk, oil, and eggs. The Bisquick mix waffle recipe requires Bisquick mix, milk, oil, and eggs. By comparing the two we can see that the Bisquick mix replaces flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and vanilla extract in the recipe. These are all very straightforward ingredients! When we make something from scratch, we just choose to use these base ingredients instead of the pre-packaged mix. It means we need to keep a few more items on hand in our pantry (i.e., flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and vanilla extract instead of Bisquick), but these ingredients are common to many foods and we use them frequently. Even the recipe instructions to follow using a mix or when from scratch are often identical. The waffle recipes above are exactly the same: mix all ingredients in a bowl and pour into waffle iron.

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Baking mixes are highly processed—they introduce lots of additional ingredients to ensure the mix keeps well, has the correct coloring, and performs as expected in the kitchen. Since these additional ingredients are not present in basic ingredients like flour, making food from scratch inherently results in food with simpler ingredients. Choosing simpler ingredients isn’t required to avoid soy, but it does help to know exactly what ingredients are in the food we make if we need to track down what we ate that contained soy. Additionally, choosing simpler food can be a good practice for healthier eating.

Cooking and baking from scratch does not need to be hard or intimidating—using individual ingredients can be just as easy as using a mix. Conquer the fear of making something from scratch and choose simpler ingredients!