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
- Biscuit cutter
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.
Nikki
Made these for the first time.
My family loved them.
It was very simply and easy to follow.
Will keep to make again and again.
Thank you for this great recipe.
🥰
Sam
I am so glad everyone enjoyed them so much, Nikki! 🙂
David Acevedo
Thank you for this!!!! My wife is a chef and thus usually does all the cooking. She has been hinting to me a long time to make her biscuits from scratch on my own, and I had no knowledge of baking anything. This saved me! They came out perfect and looked exactly like your photo. Best yet, she loved them so much 🙂 You rock !
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them so much, David! 🙂
Becky Johnson
Excellent biscuit recipe! Finally in my 60’s, I can turn out golden, flaky biscuits using this simple recipe. The secret must be grating the cold butter from the freezer. Buttermilk was what we had in the fridge to use in place of whole milk. It did take several extra minutes for the biscuits to brown, not sure if that was related to using buttermilk. My husband really enjoyed his breakfast today.
Can the butter be left in the freezer overnight?
Becky Johnson
I Googled freezing butter and yes it can be frozen.
Sam
I am so glad you enjoy them so much, Becky! You can leave the butter in the freezer over night. 🙂
Miranda
Does the buttermilk inhibit browning?
Sam
Nope 🙂
Jennifer Hoover
Can I use whole wheat flour?
Sam
Hi Jennifer! I haven’t tried it. The whole wheat flour would definitely dry out the biscuits a little bit. I definitely don’t recommend using only whole wheat flour.
Annette Ford
Thank you for the recipe! Woke up at three and wanted to do something tasty for the fam when they wake. These turned out great! I needed to use up some vegetable shortening so I substituted two of the butter tablespoons. For some reason my dough also had trouble holding together, so I added a splash more milk. I was worried that it was a typo when you said an entire TABLESPOON of baking soda, lol, but apparently not!
Finally, wanted to report that I made a second half-batch for myself, being gluten-intolerant. I used Pillsbury’s All Purpose Gluten-Free Flour Blend and I was happy with the results! They were slightly grainer and dryer than the originals, but still very biscuit-y. And delicious smothered in butter. 😉
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them so much, Annette! Thank you for your feedback on your substitutions. 🙂
Heidi
Making these for a quick strawberry shortcake and then leftovers will be for bacon, egg and cheese sandwiches in the morning. Thanks for a great recipe!!!
Sam
That sounds like a great couple of meals! I hope everyone loves it. 🙂
Ingrid
Hi! These are by far my family’s favorite biscuits! Is it ok to make them ahead and freeze them?
Sam
I am so glad everyone enjoys them so much, Ingrid! Freezing them will be fine. You can either cut out the biscuits and freeze the uncooked dough (my preferred method) or you can freeze them after baking and heat them up in the microwave for a minute or so when ready to eat. 🙂
PAMELIA
By the way, they are DELICIOUS!!
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them so much! 🙂
PAMELIA
This is it !!! Just made the biscuits, I will always use this recipe. One question, I woukd like to double the recipe to make larger batches. Have you tried that? Thanks again
Sam
Hi Pamelia! I’m glad you enjoyed it. I have doubled the recipe with success. I have had others report tripling the recipe on multiple occasions. 🙂
Meg
These look awesome! Could I add cheese/bacon to the dough before adding the butter?
Sam
Hi Meg! I would fold it in at the end as your are working the dough together. 🙂
Anna
I’m excited to make these today. Has anyone had any luck adding lemon zest to the dough?
Sam
Hi Anna! I haven’t tried it but I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t work. 🙂
Anh
The only biscuits recipe I’ll ever need. These were so delicious! I make these for my boyfriend and his mother who are southern. I would use this recipe for biscuits & gravy which they absolutely love.
This is honestly my all-time favorite baking blog/website!
Sam
Thank you so much, Anh! I am so glad you enjoyed the biscuits and you love the website too! Thanks for following along. 🙂
Josie
What an AMAZING recipe!! This is my family’s top favorite baked good. I bake a batch a week, and they always come out perfectly each time. I will never bake any other biscuit recipes ever again! In our house we only use Sugar Spun Run recipes when baking, and we know they will always be great and taste delicious. You are the greatest!! I hope you and your family have an amazing day!!!
Sam
Thank you so much, Josie! I am so glad everyone has enjoyed them so much! 🙂
Dani
My daughter and I made biscuits for the first time today using this recipe. They were easy and delicious!
Sam
I am so glad everyone enjoyed it so much, Dani! 🙂
Fay Kay
OMG. My first time making biscuits. It was so good! I doubled the ingredients and made 13 biscuits. I did a happy dance when I brought them out of the oven. My new, favorite food. Now I gotta go find an excellent grits recipe to complement this masterpiece
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed the biscuits so much! I don’t have a grits recipe but I do have a sausage gravy I like to use with the biscuits. 🙂