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.
Joe W
Sam, thank you for your recipies! I followed your biscuit recipie with ingredients and the cold butter grated and cold milk. I folded over several times and pressed down on the dough trying not to over work it. But some of the resulting biscuits were flat and did not rise while some did. Any idea if it was just too much handling or some other reason some didn’t rise?
Sam
Hi Joe! I’m so sorry this happened. There could be a few things happening here. You could have over-worked the dough or your baking powder could be bad. I hope they turn out better next time. 🙂
Genie
Can these biscuits be made in advance and then reheated? Thanks
Sam
Biscuits are always best when fresh from the oven, that being said they can certainly be reheated. I would just microwave them for a few seconds to reheat. Alternatively you could make the biscuits store in an air tight container in the refrigerator and baking when needed. I don’t recommend storing them uncooked for much longer than 24 hours. 🙂
Lynnette W.
I always double the recipe and cook the amount I want and freeze the rest flat on a cookie sheet until firm and then put them in a ziplock for later. Cook same temp maybe a few minutes longer. Same great taste and always a nice rise out of them. Love this recipe!!
Beth S.
I made these and froze them for baking later. I cooked them for 18 mins @ 425 from frozen and they turned out perfect. There’s nothing better than a fresh homemade biscuit! It’s nice to have them on hand for lazy mornings – just pop them in the oven – so easy 🙂
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them, Beth! Thanks for your feedback on baking from frozen. 🙂
Heather
This is crazy and they did turn out and taste delicious. I only had skim milk and only had a little less than half cup so I topped it to 3/4 cup with canned condensed milk, it’s all I had. They turned out great. I just might do this every time, it wil be my little secret ♥️👍🏼
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them so much, Heather! 🙂
Erica Boggio
This rocked! I did just what you said… and I didn’t have a circle cookie cutter so I used a snowman and it was fun! My 5, 6, and 7 were impressed, and they were perfect to go with a bowl of homemade minestrone! Doing this again! Oh, and grating the butter? Pure genius!!!
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them so much, Erica! 🙂
Sara
Hello! First, this recipe was amazing. I’ve never left a review on a recipe before–but wow! So flaky. I’ve never achieved truly flakey biscuits until now. Amazing.
They did sort of puff up unevenly (almost starting to “unfold”) in the oven. Should I press down more when folding the dough?
Thank you!
Sam
Hi Sara! While it could be a matter of a pocket of butter or something like that, usually the uneveness occurs from not pressing down perfectly evenly or “sawing” the dough a little bit when cutting out the biscuits. I wouldn’t recommend working the dough together any more. 🙂
Shari
Can you use self rising flour?
Sam
Hi Shari! I don’t recommend it here unfortunately. 🙁
Erica
I used cashew milk since we were out of regular milk and the recipe still worked! Very quick biscuit recipe, I like drop biscuits more than rolled and this mixture held the shape very well 🙂
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them so much, Erica! Thank you for the feedback using cashew milk. 🙂
LUCINA GONZALEZ
I’m 61 yrs old and this is the first time I ever made homemade biscuits. I give myself a 6 out of 10 score because I over baked them. I set the timer for 25 minutes instead of 12 — oops!!!!! They were a little too brown on the bottom — but not burned. The inside was still fluffy so we ate them anyway! Thanks for the recipe.
Sam
O no! I’m so glad you still enjoyed them! 🙂
Joli
Sugar? What does that do for the biscuit? I make like this but no sugar. 4 generations of passing down recipe. But this is the second recipe I’ve seen using sugar outside of the British.
Sam
Hi Joli! The sugar adds a little bit of flavor. It’s a subtle sweetness. I hope you’ll give it a try. I think you’ll love them. 🙂
Joli
Ok, will try anything so long as it’s not fish or sea food. Lol
Sam
🤣
Rebecca
ok, Ive been usin this recipe for over a year and without fail people imagine that i actually am a good cook! this is one of the best, easiest recipes ever. i lack much counter space so i make these in a drop form and THEY ARE AMAZING! i use a flat grater and it makes the butter perfect for blending. thank you! and happiest holidays!
Sam
I am so glad you enjoy them so much, Rebecca! It sounds like you are quite the good cook. 🙂
kelly lanspa
Mine didn’t raise. I followed your instructions closely. I have an old old oven and not sure the temperature is accurate. Could that be it?
Sam
Hi Kelly! I’m so sorry this happened. The oven temperature could be it but that’s unlikely. Your baking powder could be bad, or more likely the dough was over-worked when making the biscuits. I hope this helps and you’ll give them another try! 🙂
Abhinaya
This is the first time I made english biscuits and ot turned out so well with your recipe. I am from India being a vegetarian this eggless recipe really delighted my family ! I made yellow delicious apple jam and it suited well with the warm biscuits. Thank you.
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them so much! I love the sound of a homemade apple jam. 🙂
Adel.M
these are AMAZING 😉
Sam
Thank you so much, Adel! 🙂
Karla Glasner
Great recipe! The prep time was more like 40 min (maybe I am slow). Also I did make homemade biscuits which added another 15 mins for a grand total of 55 min prep. I also added a bit more thyme and added garlic and poultry seasoning.
Ruth Johnson
These turned out sooo good!
I’ve grated butter previously but found it got jammed up in my oval shaped grater so I used pastry cutter but made sure to mix and handle dough very minimally! I can see now that using a box grater would be much more suitable than the one I own. Lol
Thanks …video was great too.
Perfect …a keeper for sure!
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them so much, Ruth! 🙂
Stephanie Smith
Thank you for this recipe! They are delicious! I have leftover turkey and made Turkey potpie, with these beauties baked on the top. They were so good, perfect and so easy to make.
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them so much, Stephanie! 🙂