Flaky Buttery Biscuits
Biscuits are super easy to make, and don’t take much time either. Please, if you’ve never made biscuits from scratch, you owe it to yourself to give this a try. I promise these are better than any biscuit out of a can.
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Ingredients:
- 1 stick of butter
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 3 teaspoons baking powder
- 2 teaspoons sugar
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¾ cup milk
| Prep Time: 15 Minutes | Cook Time: 14 Minutes | Yield: 12 biscuits |
Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.
First, measure out the flour into a mixing bowl.
Then add the baking powder.
And the sugar.
And the salt.
Mix all the ingredients together, and then add the stick of butter. And I mean real butter- lovingly provided by happy dairy cows. (No margarine please – this is country cooking, and around here, margarine is just stiff vegetable oil in stick form.)
Using a pastry blender, cut up the butter into the dry ingredients. If you don’t have a pastry blender, you can use a fork, or 2 butter knives.
Keep cutting the butter until you don’t have any pieces bigger than a small pea.
Next, pour in all the milk.
Using a fork, stir the mixture until all of the dry ingredients are absorbed by the milk. Don’t overdue the stirring – when all the dry stuff is gone, you’re done.
Next, sprinkle some flour out on your table or counter. Put the dough on the floured surface.
Then knead the dough 5 or 6 times. To knead, fold it in half, press it down, and turn the dough a quarter turn. Then fold again, press down and turn. Do this 5 or 6 times.
Fold dough
..And press down
This is how the flaky layers are formed. When you’re done with the kneading, flatten the dough out with your hands into a uniform thickness of about ½ inch.
Now for the fun part: using a biscuit cutter, or a drinking glass, cut the biscuits out of the dough. If your cutter is sticking to the dough, dip it in some flour in between each cutting. Carefully place the biscuits on a metal cookie sheet.
Take the remaining dough, and form it into a ball, knead it a couple times, flatten it out, and cut more biscuits.
Here’s how the biscuits look in the pan.
OK, here’s a secret for getting biscuits to rise sky high, as opposed to flat hockey pucks. And here it is.
Underneath all those refrigerator magnets, is the secret: the fridge. Put the pan in the fridge for 10 minutes, before you put it in the oven. Don’t know the technicalities of why this works, but it does. After 10 minutes, take the pan out of the fridge and put it in the oven. Bake for 12-14 minutes or until a beautiful golden brown. Remove the pan from the oven, and immediately remove the biscuits from the pan.
Serve on a plate or serving bowl.
Remember the sky high flakyness I promised? Well here it is.
Cut them in half while still warm and slather with butter, jelly, apple butter, or anything that makes your taste buds happy. Once cooled, store remaining biscuits in a storage container to keep them from drying out. They can be re-warmed in your microwave in about 10 seconds.
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These are the best and easiest biscuits ever! I made them like the recipie and then tweaked it to make it allergy friendly for my 3 year old. I have NEVER had dairy free biscuits come out actually tasting good before! Hers always turn out like hockey pucks but these are nice and flakey😁 wish I could post a picture of them. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!! My daughter misses out on so many yummy things but not flakey biscuits anymore😄
How did you tweak it to make it dairyfree? My sin has FPIES. &I’m looking for a good recipe that won’t be a brick in the end. He is allergic to milk eggs beef mushrooms apples & peanuts. Thanks in advance
Just replace butter with Earth Balance butter spread and replace milk with soy or almond milk. It’s that easy. This is my second time making them dairy free and they are the best.
So, I’m not a newby cook … But this is the second time I’ve tried these biscuits, exactly as you explained and there is NO FLUFF. Wah. What could I possibly be doing wrong?? So bummed. 😕 I was so excited for nice fluffy biscuits for the fam.
Thanks!!
Shan
Shan, have you tested out your baking powder lately?
Shan,
I cook for a living and did this for the longest time without knowing it and my biscuits didn’t rise either. I was twisting the cutter when I pressed down that seals the edges and they don’t rise. After that I have just been pushing the cutter straight down and they r perfect!. Try that and then see if that makes a difference.
I made these today and absolutely no fluff. They were pretty flat. I don’t see why twisting the cutter would make a difference at all. My baking powder is fresh, as all the ingredients. It is possible it could be the butter. I will try making them again with butter specifically for baking, and keep you posted.
These biscuits are DEVINE! I was hoping I could attach a few photos 🙁 – just know they will ( or should) IMMEDIATELY start to rise tall after only 5 minutes of baking. Putting them in the frig is BRILLANT as flakey pastry always calls for VERY COLD butter ! Those tiny balls of COLD butter/flour/baking powder EXPLODE when they hit the VERY HOT 450 degree oven creating very light, soft, flakey, layers of dough. Thank you so much for such a great tip and this fabulous recipe !
No more hard biscuits! YAY!! This recipe is perfect and fun! Thank you.
I am thinking of making these for a get together. Should the stock of butter be cold or at room temperature before mixing in the dough?
Cold.
Mine didn’t rise. Not sure what I did wrong
how old was your baking powder?
Heather look at the message I sent to Shan above and see if that make a difference.
These are my most favorite biscuits ever, they come out perfect every time that I make them. I am wondering if I can use whole wheat flour to make them at the same ratio as the all purpose flour though? And also wondering if you have tried to add pumpkin to them before? Would love to know and if so I would love to try!!! Thanks!
Can you replace the butter with shortening?
Nope, it’s a butter recipe.
I made these biscuits several times and my husband cant get enough of them! Thanks for the easy and good receipe.
Hello and thank you! This recipe turned out just as you provided! Now I know that the thickness of the folds and cuts makes the difference in how big your biscuits rise!!! This is a very easy fool proof recipe to follow, my husband ranted and raved at how good they were! Thank you for helping me craft some good biscuits to go with some freshly cooked apples! Oh and I agree with other reviewers, check your baking powder and flour date for freshness, that makes a difference with rising or not! Excellent instructions and thanks again!
Just pulled these out of the oven, and, of course, hockey pucks. I’m starting to think biscuits are officially my weakness. I’ve tried a number of recipes, even those I learned in culinary school. Oh well, I guess it’s Pillsbury for me 🙁
I made these biscuits yesterday, and I had to comment about how easy they were to make! Every other time I tried making biscuits from scratch, they always came out of the oven like little hockey pucks! This recipe was flawless and worked perfectly! This is going to be my go-to biscuit recipe from here on out. Thank you for posting this great, simple, and delicious recipe!!!!
Look forward trying out this recipe! Thanks for sharing. And I just have to share with you is that I’m married to a Kansas farmer too. We also raise cattle and have the exact same crops as you two do! 🙂
Been using this recipe for about a year now!!! Makes the best biscuits.
Hello! I love love love these biscuits. They really are foolproof, and delicious! I had a quick question, if I were to make the dough and cut out the biscuits ahead of time, then keep them in the fridge stage overnight, will they still bake and rise well? Trying to save some time when I have a short “connection” between events…. And because everything is better fresh out of the oven!
Okay this recipe is awesome BUT. This is my second time making them and for some reason, my biscuits have the weirdest bitter after taste!! I made sure my surface area was wipe down. Bought new baking Soda. Fresh everything. Has this happened to anyone?? My oven is clean. I just baked cookies last week in it and it all came out good. I want to make these for my in laws next week but I can’t serve them bitter biscuits.
Hi, I just wanted to point out the recipe calls for baking powder, not baking soda. This could be why the flavor was off, unless that was a typo?
Can I use brown sugar? I ran out of white
I love these biscuits. I am a missionary living in Kenya and there are no biscuits to be found. I always thought making good biscuits was hard but decided to try this one and everyone I have made them for loves them including me!
We loved these biscuits! Super tasty and flaky. The only think I did differently was to put parchment paper down on the cookie sheet. This is now my go-to biscuit recipe! Thank you for sharing it!
I’ve tried and tried to make fluffy biscuits before but every recipe turned into flat, albeit tasty (not counting the time I accidentally used baking soda, just don’t go there), unfluffy things that could barely be split for butter. You’re recipe has finally delivered me fluffy layered lovely biscuits. I’ve never found a recipe calling for such a high temperature before, it made me a little nervous, but it was perfect. I only had one issue, I had to double the batch to get a dozen biscuits as I saw there wasn’t enough dough when I made the first batch. I figure this must either be because I used a larger biscuit cutter (2″) or I shouldn’t have spooned the dough into the measuring cups and should have scooped it directly which would give me more flour. Regardless of this, I will continue to use this recipe again and again, it is going in my recipe book right now! I did make this in my kitchenaid stand mixer but I watched it carefully so as not to over mix. It cut prep down to about 2 min. I just got my kitchenaid and just can’t stop using it, lol.
I just made these biscuits. Very easy recipe. Does taste over exciting but not bad. Mine didn’t rise like the picture so I better get some new baking powder and try again.
I’m wondering if I can leave them in the refridge longer? And can I use self rising flour?
I just tried these but added 1 cup of shredded sharp cedder and 3 cloves pressed garlic. They are delicious!!!
These biscuits are the BOMB! I forgot to put them in the fridge and they still rose sky high! They turned out perfect. Will not be buying frozen Pillsbury biscuits no more. Thank you so much for such a wonderful recipe!
Msde this they were great will make again
Definitely my go-to never-fail biscuit recipe. Terrific, tall flaky biscuits. Thanks! Made them this morning to great acclaim.
A few tips to make things even easier:
I use 8 1/2 ounces flour. (Everybody measures a bit differently and different cookbooks and sites use different weight equivalents.) I use the food processor — pulse a few times to mix dry ingredients, and butter all at once, pulse 6-8 times to cut in butter, making sure there are no lumps bigger than a peanut, but that there are lumps. I start with 1/2 cup milk and add more if needed. Don’t want dough to get sticky, and have to add more flour. This morning (warm, humid day) just needed 1/2 cup, usually end up using closer to 2/3 cup.
And, of course you can make them an hour or so earlier and just leave in frig until everyone up and nearly ready for breakfast. I do this all the time for houseguests or if I’m serving biscuits for lunch or dinner.
Can I freeze the dough to use later? And should I let it thaw out and rise before baking it off ? Or just stickin got in the oven ok?
I made these tonight. I put them on top of beef pot pie, and they were great! I did put in fridge first. I baked the extra on a pan, but they didn’t rise much. I think if I had placed them where they touched it would have been better. I’ve read baking biscuits close together leads to better rising. 🤷🏼♀️ The ones on the pot pie were close together and baked higher. I will make these again.
What about self rising flour?
These biscuits are fantastic. I’ve neverhad good luck making biscuits before, so my family thanks you! I’ve made them for guests as well and no one can get enough of them!
I just found your recipe and made these wonderful biscuits for breakfast, with sausage gravy. My kids loved them. Thank you so much!
Finally! I made perfect homemade biscuits.
A major feat. I’m an accomplished cook but biscuits have forever turned out horrible until today.
Thank you for the recipe and tutorial.
Forever grateful,
Ellie
Me and my daughter just used your recipe for the biscuits. WOW!! The refrigerator idea worked like a charm. Never thought to do that one. Last minute of cooking I did pull the biscuits out and brushed them with butter and places them back in the oven to give them a nice golden top. Thank you for posting and I will be makaing many more of these !! Yum yum
Horrible 😓😢😓
Many people seem to be overthinking this recipe. Just follow the recipe exactly! You don’t need special butter. Make sure you are using baking POWDER, not soda! DO NOT SKIP refrigeration. I’ve made this recipe a dozen times. The first time they were flat (I don’t think I refrigerated long enough, AND I rolled the dough out too thin.) Every other time I’ve made them, they have been perfect.
Best biscuits ever!! I spent the last 24 years trying to replicate my Grandmother’s biscuit and never come close. This recipe was easy and tasted just like my Grandmother’s (without the hockey puck consistency hers had). Thank you thank you thank you!!!
I think saying cupboard makes the biscuits, jam, honey, butter, cheese, etc. taste all the better ??
These are AMAZING.
Can I freeze the dough? If so, what recommendations do you have for thawing before baking?
You can freeze scratch-made biscuit dough for a rainy day. After cutting out your biscuits, arrange them on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Cover the baking sheet with plastic wrap and then transfer it to your freezer. Take the frozen biscuits straight from the freezer to the baking tray and bake. Keep in mind that they will take three to five minutes longer to bake depending on how many you bake off at a time. Thanks Amelia!!