Can You Use Bisquick To Make A Coffee Cake?

When it first came out in the 1930s, Bisquick was advertised as an instant baking mix designed to speed up the process of making biscuits. But despite its name and original purpose, consumers over the years have discovered it can be used to make other baked goods. Though pancakes and waffles are perhaps the most common non-biscuit uses for Bisquick, the truth is, you can use the product to make coffee cake, too.

The primary reason for this is that the main ingredients in Bisquick — flour, sugar, salt, and baking soda — are also the main ingredients in coffee cake. Adding milk alone to Bisquick results in a biscuit dough, but if you add sugar and eggs as well, it turns into a coffee cake batter. Streusel, which forms the top layer of coffee cake, can also be made with Bisquick. All you have to do is combine it with butter, cinnamon, and brown sugar.

If you like having coffee cake in your kitchen from time to time, you know that whether it's made from scratch or store-bought, it can easily develop a dry texture. Even if you store it in an airtight container, it'll only be about two days at room temperature before the texture starts to lose its integrity because there's no frosting to lock in the moisture.

However, when you use Bisquick to make something like a streusel coffee cake, its texture will be a lot less prone to drying out. This is because the mix relies on vegetable oil rather than butter, and vegetable oil's fat content is significantly higher. The more fat that is incorporated into a baked good, the more moist its texture will be. So, while it may not be the traditional source of fat in coffee cake, the vegetable oil in Bisquick will significantly improve its moisture retention.

Cake mix, much like Bisquick, also contains flour, sugar, salt, and baking soda. But while both baking mixes can technically be turned into coffee cake, Bisquick will yield results that are closer to a classic rendition of the treat. Coffee cake is typically a pound cake, which is higher in fat with a thicker, more toothsome bite. Cakes baked from cake mix, on the other hand, tend to be lighter and fluffier than pound cake. They contain some oil, but it makes up less than 2% of the mix.

If you use cake mix instead of Bisquick to make coffee cake, not only will the texture be different, but so will the taste. Cake mix is sweeter than Bisquick because it often contains both sugar and corn syrup. It also usually contains vanilla, whereas Bisquick doesn't have added flavors, allowing the added cinnamon and brown sugar to shine through. Both cake mix and Bisquick can create tasty coffee cakes, but if you prefer a more traditional taste, you may want to opt for Bisquick instead.