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.
Helen
Just made these today and they turned out AMAZING it looked like I bought them. The recipe was super easy to follow even for someone who has never made biscuits before like me!
One problem I had was that even though I used the exact amount of each ingredients listed, the biscuits turned out very bitter that I had to throw out half of them away 🙁 So I was thinking that maybe next time I’ll put only half Tablespoon of baking powder. Do you think that’ll be ok or would it result in the biscuits not rising enough?
Sam
Hi Helen! I’m so glad you enjoyed overall! I wouldn’t recommend reducing the baking powder, instead I would actually recommend swapping out your baking powder with a fresh can. I’ve had this issue with generic baking powder in the past or with baking powder that has been exposed to moisture. What happens is teeny tiny hard clumps form that don’t break up when you mix the dough. Then when you bite into the baked good, you bite into those teeny tiny pockets of baking powder and… well it tastes very bitter and not very good at all. You may have used this same baking powder in other recipes and not noticed it because most recipes use less baking powder so you might have just gotten lucky and not bitten into a piece with one of those bitter pebbles. My money would be on that being the problem. I hope this helps!
Helen
WOW Sam you were right on the money! Turns out the baking powder I used expired 2 yrs ago lol So I tried it again today with fresh baking powder and it wasn’t bitter at all! Thank you!
Just one more question, my biscuits tend to smell and taste quite floury (more than I’d like for it to). Is there anything I can do to make that better?
Sam
You may have just a little too much flour on the surface. Cut back on that and maybe even dust the biscuits off when you’re done. 🙂
sobia
Thank you for this recipe! I made these biscuits once before and they came out great. I wanted to know if it’s possible to either make the dough ahead of time or to make the biscuits and freeze them for later?
Sam
Hi Sobia! You can make the dough ahead of time. I have had others report making it in the evening then cooking the next morning. You will want to cut out the biscuits and then wrap them tightly so they don’t dry out. Alternatively you could freeze them. They would probably need to be wrapped individually and stored in the freezer. You could bake them from frozen, just add an extra minute or two. 🙂
Ernie
Sam; I’m not in Facebook or Instagram and don’t intend to any time this lifetime but I really wanted to comment of this biscuit recipe. It was absolutely TERRIFIC. So simple yet so elegant…..for a biscuit. I didn’t have any milk except for some powdered milk and I melted a tablespoon of butter and mixed it with the powered milk after I made the required amount. I then added some onion powder and some mesquite powder. The biscuits had me hollering with joy they were so light and flavorful. Good work. I shall investigate some other things you put out. Thanks.
Sam
Hi Ernie! Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment! I’m so glad you enjoyed them so much. 🙂
Pat
I’m 60 something and my mom made these while I was growing up. I had tried to make them before and totally failed. But this recipe worked miracles. And, you haven’t lived until you’ve grated butter! So cool.
Thanks!
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them so much, Pat! 🙂
Sue
In the past, I’ve been very successful in making hockey pucks. This recipe actually worked for me! I was able to produce fluffy, delicious biscuits for the first time ever!
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them so much, Sue! 🙂
MamaJ
These are amazing!!! Quick and easy. I rolled the left over dough in cinnamon and sugar and popped it in the air fryer an additional yum!!
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed them so much! 🙂
Amber
Best recipe!I’m glad I made double lol!
Andres
Could I just slice the dough into squares?
Sam
Hi Andres! You don’t want to do a lot of sawing through the dough but you can make the biscuits whatever shape you’d like. 🙂
Sarah
DELICIOUS and so easy to make. You opened my eyes to a whole new world with your recommendation to grate the frozen butter. WOW!
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed them so much, Sarah! 🙂
Alyssa
I only have 1% milk, will that work for this recipe? I have a sensitivity to whole milk and 2%.
Sam
Hi Alyssa! I know others have made them using 1% milk with success. 🙂
Erin
Hi!! How would you go about making cheddar and bacon biscuits?? Can I just mix them both right in to the dough or will it ruin the recipe?
Thanks!
Sam
Hi Erin! I know others have stirred in cheese so I’m sure bacon would work as well. 🙂
Jenn
These biscuits are SO GOOD!!! I was shocked that they were so tasty, flaky and buttery. I make biscuits all the time with similar ingredients, but I’ve NEVER grated the butter like this, that is a secret weapon. I’ll never do it another way again. Thank you for this recipe and all of your amazing recipes, so far, I haven’t made one that I don’t like.
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them so much, Jenn! 🙂
Kat
Can I use margarine? If i use self rising flour can i leave out baking powder?
Sam
Hi Kat! I don’t recommend using self rising flour here, and the margarine probably won’t provide the nice flaky layers that the butter does. 🙁
Beth
This recipe is just the best ! Super easy and quick , everyone I make these for asks me for the recipe . I’ve made them using fresh herbs and cheese and they always bake up perfectly!
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them so much, Beth! 🙂
Shaq B
Just finish making these buttery flavorful amazing biscuits. I love this recipe so quick and easy. Thanks so much for sharing!!
Side-note: I didn’t fell like climbing to get to my cheese grater so I used my potato peeler on my frozen butter; it work perfectly. So if you don’t have a cheese grater try your peeler lol.
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them so much! I haven’t tried the potato peeler but that’s a great idea! 🙂
Brady
Super yummy, simple and easy I will defiantly be making these again!!!!!
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed them, Brady! 🙂