The Unexpected Ingredient Swap That Could Save Your Biscuits

Nearly everyone enjoys the product of a good bake. Freshly baked bread and other goods can be incredibly satisfying. However, baking can get highly technical, requiring precise ingredients and amounts in following a recipe, so any help in making the process a little easier is always welcome. Keeping things simple, like with a 3-ingredient biscuit recipe, can get delicious food in and out of the oven and onto your plate quickly.

Basic baking ingredients — like butter, milk, and eggs — are the backbone of the best bakery-style recipes. But, as has been known to happen from time to time, it is inevitable for that dreaded moment to occur when you realize you are out of an ingredient needed for the recipe you are working on. In preparation for that panic, Popular Science did some experimenting to find the best replacements for some baking staples. One of the key takeaways from these tests found that any substitution should be subtle in flavor so as to not overpower the other parts of your recipe. Even bananas can have too strong of a flavor, as learned when they were swapped in for eggs. 

When it comes to biscuits though, if you find yourself short on butter or eggs, there is an alternative ingredient you can call upon to save the day.

The secret to deliciously moist biscuits is a condiment you may already have residing in your kitchen, according to AllRecipes. Typically reserved for sandwiches, you might not expect to use mayonnaise in your baking, but the science behind the sandwich spread makes this unexpected ingredient helpful in making biscuits. Because biscuits require fat to soften and leaven the bread, using mayo in place of butter or eggs can still accomplish the same goal. As a bonus to being a worthwhile substitute in your recipe, mayo can also ease some of your prep work by removing the headache of having to whip butter.

Mayo can also help novice bakers cut a few more corners because its temperature is not nearly as important as the temperature of butter. Butter is usually required to be cold when baking biscuits, but since mayonnaise's condition is far less important, there is no worry of overworking the fat necessary for your recipe (via AllRecipes). Try subbing your standard fats with mayo next time you are making any of these must-try biscuit recipes and compare the results.