Self Rising Flour

If you have been raised in the South, you probably have self-rising flour in your kitchen.  Soft-wheat flour combined with baking powder and salt; self-rising flour makes it easy to make biscuits, cobblers, muffins and other quick breads.

The disadvantage of self-rising flour is that if you don’t use it regularly, the leavening starts to degrade, and 6 months to 1 year is an average time, according to several flour companies.  I buy it 5# at a time and keep it in a cool, dark place.

The most popular Southern brands of self-rising flour are Martha White and White Lily.  The White Lily has the lowest protein content, about 8%, making very tender baked products.  Martha White is about 10-10.5 %.  In this area of Iowa, I can only buy Martha White, and not all the time.   Pillsbury, King Arthur and Gold Medal also make self-rising flour that I can buy locally, as well as several store brands.
My last purchase was H&R self rising flour from Pillsbury.  H&R stands for Hotel and Restaurant, or commercial flour that the Amish stores like Stringtown or The Dutchman's repackage in smaller amounts.

I like to buy my flours there because it turns over much faster than our local grocery stores.  Their Amish and Mennonite customers still bake from scratch regularly.
To Make Your Own Self Rising Flour Substitute:

Many online sources say to use 1 cup of flour with 1 teaspoon baking powder and ¼ teaspoon salt, sifted together.  Martha White says 1 cup of flour with 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder and 1/4 teaspoon salt, sifted.  Some suggest using cake flour to get the effect of the very low-protein White Lily flour.  

I have used the Martha White proportions with success because I usually use their self-rising flour recipes; but I prefer buying the self-rising flour for biscuits and muffins; I know the salt and baking powder are evenly distributed; and I bake enough quick breads to use it up.

If you don’t buy biscuit mix, self-rising flour does shorten the time to make biscuits in a hurry.