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.
Lorena
Delicious and extremely easy to make! I’m not a baker (nor a cook) and was a bit worried I would overwork the dough, but that was not the case. My oldest requested biscuits and sausage gravy for one of his birthday meals and he loved every bit of it!
Sugar Spun Run
I am so glad that they were a hit and were enjoyed with my sausage gravy recipe. I hope that your son enjoyed his birthday meal and had a nice celebration, Lorena! Thanks for commenting. 🙂
Trish G.
Thank you so much! These biscuits have been a hit with my family ❤️
Sugar Spun Run
I am so glad that everyone has enjoyed them, Trish! Thank you for commenting. 🙂
Kathy
What about buttermilk?
Sugar Spun Run
You can use buttermilk in place of the milk if you’d like, Kathy! I hope that you enjoy them. 🙂
Lori M. Tanaka
Can I use bread flour and omit the baking powder?
Sam
I think bread flour would work but the biscuits will likely be chewier. I would not omit the baking powder though.
Romain
I really loved this… I am from Jamaica and I got tired of cooking Jamaican food so I tried this with pot roast beef it was great. I used sweet cream butter which was already salted and I did not add any salt to mine it was great
Sugar Spun Run
I am so happy that you enjoyed the recipe, Romain, and that it paired perfectly with your dinner. Thank you for trying my recipe and for commenting. 🙂
Robert
How much buttermilk should I use if I wanted to use that instead of whole milk?
Sugar Spun Run
Hi, Robert! You will just substitute the milk with buttermilk 1:1. I hope that you enjoy your biscuits! 🙂
Susa
They also turn out fine if you omit the sugar. Don’t use fake sweeteners the results aren’t desirable!
I use pink Himalayan salt in the mix and i sift everything dry together before cutting in the butter.
For the shredded frozen butter, adding in a little at a time and tossing it lightly with the flour will separate out the pieces of butter better, yielding a more moist biscuit.
These are fantastic with honey butter (raw honey blended into butter with a dash of cinnamon and touch of nutmeg), homemade berry jam, apple butter, or cinnamon honey cream cheese.
As a variety you can also add dried herbs before cutting in the butter, and pair with a lemon herb butter or herbed whipped cream cheese
Sugar Spun Run
Thank you so much for trying my recipe, Susa! I am so glad that you enjoyed them! Thanks for sharing what you’ve tried and what worked/didn’t worked for you. I appreciate your feedback. 🙂
ToniaG
Can i use salted butter and just reduce the salt in the recipe?
Sugar Spun Run
Yes, that will work fine, Tonia! I hope that you enjoy the biscuits! 🙂
Jewelia
I only have skim milk, do you think it would still work?
Sugar Spun Run
Hi, Jewelia! Unfortunately, I do not recommend it. The biscuits will be dense and drier in texture.
Peter C
Can I use cream or half+half instead of milk. Happen to have extra I need to use up.
Sugar Spun Run
Hi, Peter! I have not tried either as a substitute but I think that you will be ok to use half and half. If you try it, let me know how it turns out. 🙂
Peter C
* I meant instead of milk.
Christie
I only have coconut sugar on hand. Do you think using coconut sugar instead of white sugar will affect the biscuit?
Sugar Spun Run
Hi, Christie! I personally have not tried coconut sugar with this recipe. It should be fine. Keep me posted on how they turn out. 🙂
Tammie
I love this recipe! I was wondering if I can freeze the raw biscuits to bake later?
Sugar Spun Run
I am so glad that you enjoyed them, Tammie! Yes, you can freeze the pre-cut biscuit dough to bake later. One thing to note is that if you are baking the frozen biscuits they will need additional time bake. 🙂
Anastasia Styles
really love the recipe!!! even my family said it was so tasty so i had to make a 2nd batch!
Sugar Spun Run
I am so glad that it was such a hit with your family, Anastasia! Thank you for trying my recipe and for commenting. Enjoy your second batch! 🙂
Veronica
This recipe and your tips are on point! I’m not a baker. This was my first time making biscuits and my first batch was perfect. Super easy to make and delicious!
Sugar Spun Run
I am so glad that you enjoyed them and found the tips helpful, Veronica! Thank you for trying my recipe and for commenting. 🙂
Andrea
Can I use coconut milk instead of regular milk?
Sugar Spun Run
Hi, Andrea! Coconut Milk will alter the taste of the biscuits and will make them denser, therefore, I don’t recommend it.
Eliza R
I have been seriously struggling to find a recipe for fluffy biscuits. I tend to end up with hockey pucks. These were the first time I have ever made a successful biscuit. Beautifully light, fluffy and super tasty! I made strawberry shortcake and they were a huge hit. I definitely recommend this recipe for anyone with limited cooking experience.
Sugar Spun Run
I am so glad that you have finally found the recipe you’ve been looking for and your biscuits turned out perfectly, Eliza! Thank you for commenting! Enjoy! 🙂