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.
Carmen Giles-Rogers
I was wondering how the dough does if you freeze it? Would you recommend freezing the dough uncooked or freezing the baked biscuits? I have a food saver for freezing:)
Sugar Spun Run
Hi, Carmen! Either way will work. The only thing to keep in mind is that if you bake frozen biscuit dough, it will take longer to bake than what is listed. Enjoy! 🙂
francie
I made these for Easter Dinner yesterday, as a last minute thought. They were quite tasty, flakey, and looked lovely.
We all enjoyed the hot biscuits. Thanks, Sam!
Francie
Sugar Spun Run
I am so glad that everyone enjoyed them, Francie! Thanks for trying my recipe. 🙂
MG
Looks so good! Would it work with the recipe to mix anything into the dough (cheese, jalapeños, etc.)?
Sugar Spun Run
Thank you so much, Molly. Yes, others have added chopped jalapenos and cheese and had success. I hope that you enjoy them. 🙂
Tori
Will almond milk work for this recipe?
Sugar Spun Run
Hi, Tori! I have found that almond milk alters the taste and texture of the biscuits, however, others who have used it had no complaints and still enjoyed them. I hope you have success too. 🙂
Anna
Soooo good and easy. Will never need another recipe!!
Sugar Spun Run
I am so glad that you enjoyed them, Anna! Thanks for commenting. 🙂
Ash
I love the idea and the fact that there are few ingredients. I’ve been cooking for 13 years now and decided to try something new. They didn’t rise much (maybe don’t roll them as thin). I had to add more milk. They ended up dry. They were flaky so that was good. Flavor is a homemade taste! Love it. I’m going to try it against just thicker. Thanks!
Sugar Spun Run
Thanks for giving my recipe a try, Ash! I am sorry that your biscuits did not rise as much, this could be a result of overworking the dough. If the biscuits were dry, you could have also over measured your flour some. This is common in baking so I have created a guide on
how to measure flour that can be used as a reference for next time. Regardless, I am glad that you enjoyed them. 🙂
Ebonie
What can you substitute the baking soda for baking powder and get similar results?
Sugar Spun Run
Unfortunately, no. Baking soda is needed in this recipe. 🙁
Kay
Husband bought salted butter, should I leave out the teaspoon of salt?
Sugar Spun Run
Hi, Kay! Salted butter will be fine, you will just omit the additional salt listed. Enjoy! 🙂
Alicia
I was just wondering if you can double the recipe? Sometimes recipes don’t turn it as well vs making 2 separate batches.
Sugar Spun Run
Hi, Alicia! Yes, this recipe doubles nicely. Enjoy! 🙂
Ariel
Can you use 2% milk instead of whole milk?
Sugar Spun Run
That will be fine, Ariel! I hope that you enjoy them. 🙂
Yolanda
Can I use self-serving flour instead?
Sugar Spun Run
Hi, Yolanda! I am not certain how it will do. Self-rising flour contains baking powder and salt in it so in order for it to work, you’d have to reduce the amount of those ingredients added strategically. Unfortunately, having not tried it myself, I do not know the correct amounts needed. I would be afraid that self-rising flour also does not contain enough baking powder to give you the proper rise needed. If you try it, I’d love to know how it turns out for you. 🙂
Ellie
Hi I was wondering we were out of milk is there any way we could make these biscuits with out it?! Thank you🙂
Sam
Hi Ellie! Unfortunately other than buttermilk I do not know of another substitute. 🙁
Marishell Mulvihill
Amazing. Delicious. Easy. Wow!!!
Sam
Thank you so much! 🙂
Julia
These are amazing!! I am not a baker at all, I’m more of a free-wheeling cook, but I have made these twice in 5 days for my family of 5. Seriously, so much better than any restaurant biscuit, I texted my friends a picture of my most recent batch with the caption “these have serious lift!” These are substantial without being heavy or floury. I plan on using this recipe for years & passing it along to my daughters. Never thought I’d be someone to make homemade biscuits regularly, thank you for this!!
Sam
I am so glad everyone is enjoying the biscuits so much, Julia! Here’s to many more batches of biscuits! 🙂
Aaliyah
Is whole milk necessary or can I use almond milk? What can the baking powder be substituted with?
Sam
Hi Aaliyah! The whole milk is strongly recommended to have the best biscuits. Almond milk may work but the biscuits won’t be as moist and flavorful. Unfortunately there is no substitute for baking powder here. 🙁
Nichole
I never write reviews – I’m terrible, I just read them all. This was great and so easy. I know how to bake so I didn’t watch the video. My boyfriend tried to make biscuits and sausage patties for breakfast this morning. The biscuits were terrible, small hard disks. I think he used some biscuit mix that was probably 5 years old. I quickly googled and found this recipe. They were awesome! I think they kind of looked better than yours – haha. The layers turned out perfect. Next time I might freeze half and try that since there’s only 2 of us. Also, I think it took the same amount of time as whatever he did. I used the toaster oven too for faster preheat. Thank you and this is my official biscuit recipe from now on.
Sam
Thank you so much for taking the time to leave a comment, Nichole! I am so glad you enjoyed the biscuits so much. Homemade is always better if you ask me. 🙂
Alicia Ventura
So I made these this morning after craving biscuits for a week. Let me start off by saying I’m not the best baker. I followed this recipe exactly and these cake out divine!! Super tall, fluffy, and tender. This is gonna be a new favorite recipe for me. Thank you for sharing!
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed the biscuits, Alicia! 🙂