Tainted flour recall expands to biscuits, cake mix, jalapeno poppers

By MEGAN THIELKING @meggophone   –   STAT

First cookie dough, now cheddar biscuits — even more foods are getting dusted up in the flour recall that’s burning baked good lovers everywhere.

Federal officials on Thursday announced a recall of Marie Calender’s Cheese Biscuit Mix, the latest in a string of recalls tied to flour tainted by E. coli bacteria. The contaminated flour — produced at a General Mills facility in Missouri — is behind at least 42 cases of food-borne illness across 21 states, leading to 11 hospitalizations.

The company recalled the flour in May and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged consumers to stop scarfing down raw cookie dough. Since then the recall pool has widened to Betty Crocker Super Moist Party Rainbow Chip Cake Mix and its less-popular cousin, a carrot cake mix, as well as Golden Dipt breaded jalapeno nuggets and now the cheese biscuit mix.

Also on the recall list: blueberry-flavored “nuggets” in Krusteaz Blueberry Pancake Mix.

The flour was definitively identified as the culprit when genetic testing in June confirmed that the flour contained E. coli that matched the strain isolated from sick individuals.

General Mills has recalled more than 10 million pounds of Gold Medal flour, Signature Kitchens flour, and Gold Medal Wondra flour since the outbreak began.

There have not been any deaths reported in the bacterial outbreak. The strain of E. coli that’s cropped up in the cases can cause stomach pain, diarrhea, and dehydration.

The CDC recommends that anyone with the contaminated products toss them in the trash. A full list of affected products is available here.