Buttery, soft, and made completely from scratch, this easy homemade biscuit recipe deserves a permanent place in your recipe repertoire. This recipe is made with all butter, no shortening!
With just 6 ingredients that I bet you already have on hand, these homemade biscuits are so simple to make and I’ve included plenty of tips (and a video!) to make sure you end up with perfect biscuits every single time.
Two reasons I’m super excited to share this homemade biscuit recipe with you today:
One: because homemade biscuits are delicious (obviously) and they’re so easy to make. So many people buy the canned version without realizing that they already have all of the ingredients to make them from scratch in their pantry.
The taste of a pre-made biscuit doesn’t hold a candle to a homemade biscuit. Not. even. close. Preservatives and artificial flavors, you aren’t welcome here.
Two: because ever since I started working on this biscuit recipe a few weeks ago, “Mind Your Own Biscuits” by Kacey Musgraves has been stuck in my head and I’ve been singing it off-key relentlessly.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Kacey Musgraves and her music, but every time I start singing my dog starts actually crying. It’s sad and hilarious, and if I wasn’t so embarrassed by my terrible singing voice I would have shared a video of it by now. Hopefully, by publishing this recipe I’ll release myself from the endless refrain and the animal abuse will finally stop.
But let’s talk more about the first reason.
Homemade biscuits call for just six ingredients: all-purpose flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, butter, and milk. And then more butter once they’re finished baking because of course we need more butter.
I mentioned that these biscuits are easy so do not be alarmed by all the tips that I have for you below. These biscuits are easy, but technique matters and I want to arm you with all the information that you need so that you can make these easily and have them come out perfectly the very first time.
The tips are simple but important, and while some more seasoned bakers already know them, I want to give everyone an even playing field.
Tips for Making Homemade Biscuits
- The butter and milk for this recipe need to be as cold as possible for fluffy and soft biscuits. I freeze my butter before using it and recommend keeping the milk in the refrigerator right up until it’s time to add it to the dry ingredients.
- Don’t overwork the dough! Keep in mind that you want your butter to stay as cold as possible when making these biscuits, and the more you have your hands on the dough the softer the butter will become. Definitely don’t use an electric mixer for this recipe.
- We’re going to do a little bit of laminating. This means folding the dough over itself multiple times (5-6 times here) to encourage flaky layers in our biscuits. You can watch the video below to see exactly how this is done.
- Don’t use a rolling pin, use your hands to gently work the dough into a flat rectangle before cutting out your biscuits.
- Don’t be afraid to add flour to the dough if it’s too sticky while you are handling it (and make sure to work on a lightly floured surface).
Visual clue: If you look at the pre-baked biscuit below, you’ll see that you can actually see the butter pieces in the dough. This is what you want, the ingredients won’t be well-combined like with a cookie dough and seeing bits of butter means you’ve actually done everything right here. Hooray!
A Few Notes on Butter in Homemade Biscuits
The butter is possibly the most important part of this recipe, and the way you handle it can make or break your homemade biscuits.
While you can certainly use a pastry cutter to cut your butter into the dry ingredients, I recommend freezing your butter for about 30 minutes before beginning. Then, use a box grater to grate the butter before combining this in with your dry ingredients.
I use this technique in my scone recipes and highly recommend it with these biscuits, too. Not only is it much easier than using a pastry cutter, but it does a great job of finely shredding and distributing the butter throughout the mixture without overworking the butter (remember, you want to manage the butter as little as possible so that it’s as cold as possible when going into the oven).
Alternatively you could also use a food processor (like I do with my pie crust recipe), but it’s just so easy to grate in the butter that I always use this method instead.
And yes, I do recommend using unsalted butter in this recipe and then adding salt. If you want to know more about why I write my recipes this way, you can read all about it (and an easy substitution if you only have salted butter on hand) in this post that I wrote about salted vs unsalted butter.
I know I’ve mentioned to you guys a few times that I’ve been working on a baking contest/challenge/I’m really not sure what to call it, but I’m planning a post where I encourage all of you to bake along with me. The goal is to get people baking recipes they may have not tried before, and I’m encouraging everyone to share their results for a chance to win a small prize.
Well, today’s homemade biscuit recipe is essentially the base for the baking challenge that I’ll be sharing in exactly one week, so take this as a hint that making today’s recipe is a great way to get a jump start for the challenge!
To make sure you’re among the first to be notified of all new recipes and baking challenges, make sure you’re subscribed to my e-mail list. It’s free, and you get a free e-book of 8 of my favorite cookie recipes.
Enjoy!
How to Make Homemade Biscuits
I know I talked a lot in this video, but I really feel that the tips are so important, and will help ensure your biscuits come out perfectly!
Homemade Biscuits
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour (250g)
- 1 Tablespoon baking powder
- 1 Tablespoon granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 6 Tablespoons unsalted butter very cold (85g), unsalted European butter is ideal, but not required
- ¾ cup whole milk¹ (177ml) buttermilk or 2% milk will also work
Recommended Equipment
Instructions
- For best results, chill your butter in the freezer for 10-20 minutes before beginning this recipe. It's ideal that the butter is very cold for light, flaky, buttery biscuits.
- Preheat oven to 425F and line a cookie sheet with nonstick parchment paper. Set aside.
- Combine flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt in a large bowl and mix well. Set aside.2 cups all-purpose flour, 1 Tablespoon baking powder, 1 Tablespoon granulated sugar, 1 teaspoon salt
- Remove your butter from the refrigerator and either cut it into your flour mixture using a pastry cutter or (preferred) use a box grater to shred the butter into small pieces and then add to the flour mixture and stir.6 Tablespoons unsalted butter
- Cut the butter or combine the grated butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
- Add milk, use a wooden spoon or spatula to stir until combined (don't over-work the dough).¾ cup whole milk¹
- Transfer your biscuit dough to a well-floured surface and use your hands to gently work the dough together. If the dough is too sticky, add flour until it is manageable.
- Once the dough is cohesive, fold in half over itself and use your hands to gently flatten layers together. Rotate the dough 90 degrees and fold in half again, repeating this step 5-6 times but taking care to not overwork the dough.
- Use your hands (do not use a rolling pin) to flatten the dough to 1" thick and lightly dust a 2 ¾" round biscuit cutter with flour.
- Making close cuts, press the biscuit cutter straight down into the dough and drop the biscuit onto your prepared baking sheet.
- Repeat until you have gotten as many biscuits as possible and place less than ½" apart on baking sheet.
- Once you have gotten as many biscuits as possible out of the dough, gently re-work the dough to get out another biscuit or two until you have at least 6 biscuits.
- Bake on 425F for 12 minutes or until tops are beginning to just turn lightly golden brown.
- If desired, brush with melted salted butter immediately after removing from oven. Serve warm and enjoy.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered an estimate only. Actual nutritional content will vary based upon brands used, measuring methods, cooking method, portion sizes, and more.
Penny likes to supervise the photography process. Fortunately, this setup got her vote of approval.
Melissa
Hi! Can I use this as a base for an egg casserole? Would I have to bake it a little bit first?
Sam
Hi Melissa! I haven’ tried it in an egg casserole before. If the egg casserole typically uses biscuits in the recipe I think it would work just fine. 🙂
Sara
I’m going to try this tomorrow. Do you think it will work with a milk replacer such as oat or coconut milk? Happy Easter!
Sam
Hi Sara! I haven’t tried it but I think it may turn out. Let me know how it goes. 🙂
Triianna Carr
Hi! I made these biscuits today and they looked done from the outside but the inside was still kind of raw, idk what I did wrong, do you have any suggestions?? I know if they would have cooked all the way through they would have been absolutely perfect!
Sam
Hi Triianna! It sounds like they just needed a bit more time in the oven. If your oven temperature is running a bit hot that could also cook the outside a bit too fast while the inside isn’t cooking quickly enough.
Crystal
Will 2% milk work as well with this recipe? It’s all I have on hand
Sam
Hi Crystal! Others have done it with success. 🙂
Ladena Woods
I just made thes biscuits and they came out so delicious. My family loves them! And I really don’t like baking. Lol! But for now on I’m not buying anymore store brought. This is going to be my go to.. Thanks for this recipe
Sam
So happy to hear this, Ladena! Thank you so much for commenting! 🙂
Dea
I have never made biscuits and really don’t cook much at all and these turned out GREAT!!! The video is very helpful and I did watch it 3 times. The only thing I did different was I cut the biscuits in to squares, but you also have to trim the outside edges so the biscuits lift straight up. The 4 edges I twisted and cooked them off to the side.
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed the biscuits, Dea! 🙂
Ray
I’ve been baking recently and this recipe has been terrific for easy family meals! I’ve been making my own buttermilk to use instead of plain (add 1 tbsp of lemon juice to 1 cup milk 30 minutes before making) and it really gives them a lovely texture
Sam
I am so glad you are enjoying the biscuits so much, Ray! Happy baking! 🙂
Candice
These were so good especially straight out of the oven. They didn’t get much time to cool anyway, my kids snatched them up as soon as they hit the plate. I used buttermilk and grated the butter like you suggested and it was much easier. Perfect salty sweet fluffy flaky goodness! No need to go to McDonald’s for their chicken biscuits anymore I can just make them myself!
Sam
Yay! So happy to hear it the biscuits were such a hit, Candice! Thank you for commenting 🙂
Shakira
so i tried to make it and i followed all the recipe and my dough just wasn’t cutting it it was super sticky i think it might have been the butter i used but anyhow i still baked the giant ball of dough 😂 the recipe is really tasty although i made one huge biscuit it was an amazing giant biscuit 😂 Any tips ? I used country crook butter all i had maybe i should have used stick butter ?
Sam
Haha, it was definitely the butter unfortunately, you definitely need to use stick butter with this recipe 🙂
Zanderful
Recipe works well I have used it 4 times doubling the recipe. 2% milk is all I have around. I just measure (with scale) the dry stuff into a gallon bag the night before and put it in the refrigerator. Butter into the freezer. On my counter I use plastic wrap so I can just peel it up and throw away the mess. Also I use a sharp knife as I don’t have a round cutter. Cutting them into squares and then lightly work with hands into rounds. My kids do a good job with that part. If you use something round that isn’t really sharp like a drinking glass or whatever I have found it pinches the sides too much and makes the biscuit uneven when it raises. So knife it is plus you don’t have to work the scraps into the weird Frankenstein biscuit.
Sam
So glad you enjoyed, and thank you for sharing your tips for cutting! 🙂
Kelly
Thank you for this recipe! Today is my daughter’s 18th birthday and her stuck-at-home birthday request was monkey bread for breakfast. This biscuit dough made an awesome base for orange spice monkey bread – the family loved the texture and tenderness and my daughter declared it the best she’d ever had!
Sam
I am so happy to hear this! Than you for commenting, Kelly!
Linda
How do I measure out 6TB from a one pound block of butter?
Sam
It would be 85 grams 🙂
Nancy
My dough was very dry. I aerated the flour before measuring.
I had a hard time pressing it out.
Ashton Sanders
Love this recipe! The biscuits come out perfectly every time. Can the milk be replaced with buttermilk straight across?
Sam
Yes it can! Enjoy!
Eileen
This was the first time I ever made biscuits was today. I am not a good baker at all but these were so easy! My husband and I love them! Can’t wait for the adult kids in the house to wake up and try them!
Sam
I’m so happy they were such a success! Thank you for commenting, Eileen! 🙂