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.
Alisa Granger
Ahhhhmazing! I doubled the recipe and they came out perfectly, in fact, my family raved over these biscuits. I can’t wait to try more recipes from Sugar Spun Run!
Sam
I hope you love the rest of the recipes just as much, Alisa! Thank you so much for commenting, I appreciate it! 🙂
Bee
Second time making these biscuits. Thought the first time was an accident….too easy to be that yummy and flakey?…..no, this is 5⭐️s. Thank you!
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them so much! 🙂
Amy
I’ve made these biscuits 4 times and they are just so consistently amazing every time! The first two times I made them with whole milk (amazing as expected). The third time, I didn’t have whole milk so I used 60% heavy cream and 40% for the same volume of milk required for the recipe and they came out just as amazing! Today, I didn’t have heavy cream nor whole milk so I used oat milk and again, success! The butter grating technique is just genius and so much easier than pulling out my food processor. I can’t stop raving about this recipe, whenever my friends mention wanting to make biscuits, I send this fool proof recipe over to them!
Sam
I am so glad everyone enjoys them so much, Amy! I love all of the feedback using your substitutions. 🙂
Brian
If I wanted to make a few batches in advance but then freeze them so that I can bake as needed what temp should I bake them at and for how long? Or should I just let them rest at room temp for a bit and bake them as instructed above?
Sam
Hi Brian! You can either thaw overnight in the refrigerator before baking or just bake them a few minutes longer if baking from frozen (I’m not sure exactly how much longer, unfortunately). The oven temp would stay the same 🙂
Niki
Hi Sam
Do you have to let the biscuits come to room temperature before baking if refrigerating the dough?
Sam
You don’t have to let them come to room temperature. You can just bake them straight from the refrigerator. They may need an extra minute. Enjoy! 🙂
Sarah
Thank you for this recipe!! Do you think it would turn out well if the dough was prepped the day before and refrigerated overnight? Or should it all be done the same day?
Sam
Hi Sarah! It can be made a day in advance (I usually roll out the dough and cut out the biscuits then just refrigerate in an airtight container until ready to bake). They do well being made in advance. Enjoy! 🙂
Kathleen Dixon
I added i tsp apple cider vinegar to the milk. Perfect. I didn’t roll out I did them as a drop biscuit. Oh yum
Michelle
Super easy! Incredibly buttery and flaky and just yummy!
Dave Hosseini
Fantastic recipe! I’ve Made them 4 times now -had only one hitch the third time a lot of grated butter stuck to the grater and I didn’t realize it til they were cooking… every other time great though! Two questions-is there a way to make them browner and can recipe be doubled? Thanks!
Sam
Hi Dave! This recipe doubles very well. You can brush the tops with milk, or even an egg wash before baking to make them a little more brown. The egg wash will probably work better here. 🙂
Abby Wells
Hi Sam,
Is it possible to freeze these biscuits after you have made them?
Thanks!
Sam
You can freeze them after baking, but it’s probably better if you freeze before baking. You can then bake them from frozen adding just a minute or two to the bake time and you have fresh biscuits. I would cut the biscuits out then store in an air tight container. 🙂
Cat
Thank you, these biscuits turned out awesome!😍 Fluffy, flaky, *and* easy to make. I’m keeping this recipe!
Lon
Delicious and easy thank you so much
Caroline Quadrino
They were so easy to make, light and delicious! Love the idea of grating the butter as it was distributed so evenly through the dough. Made with 2% milk but looking forward to trying with buttermilk! Thank you#
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed them so much, Caroline! 🙂
Diane
Best biscuit recipe. Ever. Easy to make. The tip to “grate the butter” was genius. This will definitely be my go-to recipe for biscuits.
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed them so much, Diane! 🙂
Larry
I make these often and feeze some for “later”. Curious if I can use my muffin pan to bake them?
Sam
I suppose you could if they fit but I would recommend a baking sheet if you have one 🙂
Erica
wow! fantastic! best I’ve ever made. I even used lactose free milk and margarine (lactose free household for reasons lol) and it still came out great! I will definitely be making these again…easy and tasty!
**forgot to rate before submitting comment so commenting again
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them so much, Erica! 🙂
Erica
Wow! Fantastic! Best ones Ive made. I even used lactose free milk and margarine (lactose free household for reasons lol) and they still came out wonderfully! I will definitely be making these frequently…easy and tasty!