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.
Lindsey
My biscuits were bitter! It is supposed to be 1 tbsp of baking powder right? I don’t know what I did wrong but they were inedible. 😩
Sam
Hi Lindsey! Is it possible your baking powder was bad, or not mixed in well enough and you bit into a pocket of it?
Crystal
I made them and they came out great but is there away to make them fluffy ier.
Sam
Hi Crystal! Hmm they should be pretty fluffy, if yours weren’t is it possible the butter got too warm or the dough was accidentally over-worked? See the tips in my post and check out the video if you haven’t already 🙂
Rachel
These were SO easy and delicious! I’m staying with family out of town and they didn’t have all purpose flour on hand so we used self rising flour. We just left out the baking powder.
We had to run to the dollar store for butter, and all they had was salted butter… So we left out the extra salt in the recipe.
But it still turned out great even with the changes we had to make! I’ve made biscuits before, the old fashioned way, cutting the butter in with a fork. The grater trick is a serious game changer! It’s so much easier and faster.
Sam
I’m so thrilled to hear the biscuits were such a success, Rachel! Thank you so much for commenting, I appreciate it! 🙂
Glen
Fantastic recipe! My first batch were perfect. Any pitfalls in doubling the recipe or should I make 2 batches?
Sam
Hi Glen! Many readers report making double batches without issues. 🙂
Jennifer
Tasted good but my biscuits didn’t rise much. I did use gluten free flour and macadamia milk instead of regular milk. Could using gluten flour and macadamia milk could be the cause?
Sam
That could do it for sure, as could over-working the dough if that was a possibility. Glad you still enjoyed the taste!
Adriana
I was not very good at making biscuits before this recipe. The butter was easy to grate, except the last little part, they bake up fluffy and perfect. Do only use your hands to form rectangle.
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed, Adriana!
Drew P. Wenier
Why do all of the reviewers have the same profile picture and were all posted within 2 days?
Sam
Hi Drew! You will see that even your comment has the same picture. This is a standard picture and it’s actually part of my logo. You will see a lot of comments posted within the last 2 days because LOTSSS of people are making biscuits right now. 🙂
Alexis
I’ve made these biscuits several times now, nearly every week they’re so good! My family loves them with honey and it’s so yummy fresh out of the oven. Just what I was looking for!
Sam
I am so glad everyone enjoys them so much, Alexis! 🙂
Barrye Wright
I have tried this recipe a few times, but the biscuits were not up to my standard(my fault). I finally took my time and the biscuits were perfect. It is definitely a process that takes patience and I did not have it the first few times. Tasty recipe with only a few ingredients. I am looking forward to making these perfect every time. Thanks for sharing.
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them so much, Barrye! 🙂
Sophie
Can I make the recipe few days ahead of time and store in the freezer? If so, do I pop it straight to the oven out of the freezer or wait till it is defrosted? And how long should I bake in this case?
Thank you so much.
Sam
Hi Sophie! You can certainly freeze these and then bake from frozen. I would add an extra minute or two when baking. 🙂
Julie
I’ve been looking for a recipe like this. Wonderful! Thank you.
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed them so much, Julie! 🙂
Jeah
Hi! Can I refrigerate the dough for future use? Any tips? Thank you!!
Sam
Hi Jeah! I have refrigerated these biscuits overnight without issue. Cut out the biscuits then store them in an air tight container in the refrigerator. 🙂 If you need to keep them longer than a day I would probably freeze the biscuits. 🙂
Kate
So so good, perfect breakfast. Just like store bought biscuits. Way cheaper to do it at home than buying the dough in stores. So simple so good . Ugh.
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them so much, Kate! 🙂
Nohemi Barriga
This recipe is absolutely simple to follow and biscuits nothing but delicious on point!
Thank You so much for sharing this recipe! I cannot stop making batches and it is so nice to know hat that I am not eating preservatives or store bought.
When making a larger amount of biscuits 10-20 at a time how many cups of flour do you recommend?
Thank You Sam!
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them so much, Nohemi! 🙂 Since this recipe makes 6 biscuits just scale everything according. If you want 12 just double all of the ingredients and triple the ingredients for 18. 🙂
Teresa
Thank you for this wonderful step by step recipe. Couldn’t be any easier! Freezing the butter for 15 minutes was perfect. I look forward to trying your other recipes.
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed it so much, Teresa! 🙂