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.
James Patrick
Really good. Made them for breakfast sandwiches. Not sure if they will make it until then after tasting. Thanks for the recipe.
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them so much, James! 🙂
Esther Igiraneza Chester
These are the best I have ever made. The taste and texture is perfect. Thank you.
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them so much, Esther! 🙂
Darwin
Can I substitute baking soda for baking power with this recipe? If so what is the ratio? Thanks!
Sam
Unfortunately that won’t work here. 🙁
DJ
my biscuits came out hard on top and bottom, what did I do wrong?
Sam
Hmm I wonder if they were overbaked. Is your oven running hotter than it says it is?
Angelica Srivoraphan
Loved this recipe! They turned out great. If I wanted to triple this to feed a bigger family can I just triple or should I make in batches based on the amounts?
Sam
Hi Angelica! You can triple the recipe, just be sure to take care to not overwork the dough and warm that butter up too much. 🙂
Patti
This was my first time making biscuits from scratch. They came out wonderful! The best tip, which took so much elbow grease out of the equation was grating chilled butter. I would have had to do it the hard way with a fork, but I will never worry about that, or not having to sub less efficient tools again. Thanks!
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them so much, Patti! 🙂
Stacie Collins
The best biscuits ever! I never have time to make perfectly shaped biscuits so I just do this recipe drop biscuits style. I also oil the bottom of the pan a so it “frys” the bottom of the biscut. I have made this for guest and family and it NEVER disappoints.
Sam
I am so glad everyone enjoys them so much, Stacie! 🙂
Tracey
I think theses biscuits were the best I have ever made. I think freezing the butter was a great tip. Also, brushing with a good amount of melted salted butter right out of the oven seemed to make a big difference. I substituted one tablespoon of duck fat for one of the tablespoons of butter just to experiment. I splurged and purchased a jar of duck fat recently. The end result was delicious!!! Thank you!
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed it so much, Tracey! I have never baked with duck fat before. It sounds interesting. 🙂
Ryan
They turned out amazingly delicious!
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed them so much, Ryan! 🙂
Heather
I was hesitant to try this because I only had skim milk on hand, and I prefer to follow new recipes exactly, but I was REALLY craving biscuits, so I gave it a go. They still turned out absolutely delicious, with such a lovely texture. I can’t wait to use this recipe again with higher fat milk! YUM. Thank you for the tip about freezing the butter and grating it. Finally got that nice flake to my biscuits that I could never replicate before.
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them so much, Heather! 🙂
Raine
I made these this morning, first time making biscuits. Your tip for using a box grater was so great and easy!! I will definitely make these again. Thank you!!
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them so much, Raine! 🙂
Sharon
I was really feeling for biscuits and the recipe looked so simple I decided to give it a shot. I was a little low on butter so decided to use half shortening and half butter. They came out great and were delish!!!! Can’t wait to double the recipe!!! Thanks 😊
Sam
I am so glad everyone enjoyed them so much, Sharon! 🙂
Amy
Because I was cooking, with gas I left them in for 15 minutes, and they were great I also put them on parchment paper, they were beautiful biscuits.
Sam
I’m so glad they turned out, Amy! 🙂
Evey
I woke up craving biscuits this morning, came across this recipe and they hit the spot. I had never made buscuits before, was afraid my butter didn’t stay cold enough but they came out so much better than any canned biscuits I have had. Thank you for your recipe 🙂
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them so much, Evey! 🙂
Katie
So very good oh my
Q
I made these tonight and they rose so high and were fluffy and were delicious.
I had butter in the freezer so I cracked off a big chunk and weighed it 85 grams then grated it into the flour mixture. Perfect texture.
I added approximately 1 cup of grated cheddar. Also, after folding 5 or 6 times
I pressed the dough into a circle about 1 inch thick and then cut the circle into 6 wedges and placed the spaced apart wedges on the parchment. Basically, I don’t like re-rolling dough, this is easier.
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed the biscuits so much! 🙂
Matthew
These were very good. Thank you.
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed them so much, Matthew! 🙂