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.
- 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.
- 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).
- 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
I have tried at least 20 biscuit recipes within the last 12 years and I must say this is my last recipe I am trying. The biscuits were unbelievable. I love it!
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them so much, Melissa! 🙂
Sabrina
oh my goodness! I’m a terrible baker! Okay maybe not terrible but I definitely have had more fails than successes. However, I can now add one more notch to the success pile because I just made these biscuits (as in I still have flour on my fingers) and they came out SO GOOD! Your tips were perfect! I followed everything pretty much exactly the same except I only had salted butter and didn’t have parchment paper. I used foil with a teeny tiny bit of butter to grease it up and read your “salted vs. unsalted butter” article to make the change.
I rarely comment on recipes but I had to write something here because this was a winner! I will definitely be making these again! 😍
Sam
Thank you so much, Sabrina! I am so glad you enjoyed the biscuits! It is always so rewarding to be able to bake something from scratch. 🙂
Sharon
Made these this morning and I must say, easy and so delicious! Also, husband approved. The grated frozen butter trick saves time and is so easy. Thanks!
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them so much, Sharon! 🙂
Sarah K
Hi Sam, so excited to make these today. I wanted to ask, do you know how well these would store in the freezer? I’m a household of one and would love to be able to make a batch, have a few (or 4 haha), then keep the others good for the rest of the week. Would it work well to freeze them and reheat in the oven? Thanks so much!
Sam
Hi Sarah! Many people have frozen these with success. This can be done pre-bake or after they are cooked. If you want to freeze them before baking you will just want to cut out the biscuits and wrap them individually then freeze. To bake them from frozen they will just need another minute or two. If you freeze them after baking I would just put them in the microwave for a few seconds to thaw/warm them up. 🙂
carolyn guth
This is the best biscuit recipe out there. We absolutely loved them!!!
Sam
Hi Carolyn! I am so glad you enjoyed the biscuits. 🙂
Mike
Surprisingly AWESOME!!
Sam
I’m so happy you enjoyed, Mike! 🙂
Taryn
Could I make the dough in advance and then refrigerate till ready to bake??
Sam
Hi Taryn! You can make these in advance, I haven’t tried keeping them longer than 24 hours in the refrigerator. 🙂
Kate
Sam, this is now my go-to recipe! I have made these many times during the past few months of Covid-cooking! So delicious and so easy. I follow it as written – except I chill my box grater for a few minutes prior to shredding the butter 😉.
Thanks!
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them so much, Kate. 🙂
Jaymes
These biscuits are so freaking amazing and surprisingly easy. Follow the recipe and they will be great. My wife is lactose intolerant so we substituted the milk with lactose fat free milk and they still turned out great. Thank you for sharing this.
Sam
I am so glad everyone enjoyed them so much, Jaymes! 🙂
Mary
These were lovely! I ended up not having a grater so I pulse half the flour mixture in my cuisinart food processor with cubed butter until it was course. Then added it back into the bowl to add the cold milk! Everyone loved them & next time I’ll double the batch as my family ate it so fast.
Thank you for sharing this delicious recipe.
Sam
I am so glad everyone enjoyed them so much, Mary! 🙂
Dee
Love these
Bianca
Out of the blue I decided to make biscuits this morning. I’ve struggled to find a recipe I actually like until this one. It was super easy and tasted amazing. I’m saving this recipe for future use!
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed it so much, Bianca! 🙂
Ramon
Was visiting family and reminiscing about homemade Biscuits since I didn’t have my recipe I discovered this one so glad I did thanks for the recipe went well with breakfast gravy making it my go to homemade biscuit recipe
Sam
I am so glad everyone enjoyed it so much, Ramon! 🙂
Marilyn H.
First try as biscuits. Your recipe and instruction video are excellent. My biscuits actually turned out and they taste great. I am using them to make Chicken Pot Pie…..my first attempt at that as well.
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them so much, Marilyn! 🙂
Regina
Mother loves these biscuits. They turn out great every time! Thank you for the recipe.
Sam
I am so glad everyone enjoyed it so much, Regina! 🙂