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.
Mallory
My first time making biscuits and this recipe did not disappoint! I put the butter in the freezer for a bit then shredded with a box grater, and used fresh goat milk. They came out perfect!
Siu
Can I make the batter and precut them into biscuits and freeze them? And bake them the next day? I can’t wait to try these.
Sam
Hi Siu! Yes you can! If you are only making them one day in advance they would also be fine kept refrigerated in an airtight container rather than frozen (they will take longer to bake when baked from frozen so this might save you some time). Enjoy!
Siu
Thank you so much.. I will try it.
Lance
WOW!!! Best biscuits I’ve had. I cut down the salt a bit, enriched 2% milk with about 3 tablespoons of heavy whipping cream and cut the butter down to 5 tablespoons. Your recipe and instructions produces fantastic flaky tender biscuits.Thank you, this recipe is a keeper.
Zabrina Ruggles
Best biscuits I have ever made, favorite recipe now! So flaky!
Teresa Carter
Hi I just made this recipe and I followed it to the T. I’m not impressed with the flavor and 12 minutes was too long. The bottom of them was starting to burn. The parchment paper was turning very Brown I don’t know if that affected the flavor but the flavor just wasn’t very good. I don’t know what I did wrong and it was on the rack just above the middle. My butter was very cold and a little Frozen and I chopped it up I just really followed the recipe and I am sorry to say I just wasn’t crazy about it hopefully my son will eat it!
Sam
Hi Teresa! I’m so sorry this happened. If your parchment paper was starting to change it may have been too hot in your oven. You also want to bake them on the center rack for best results.
Sherry
Thank you for this super easy recipe! I am eating these biscuits right now, YUM~
Stephanie Schultz
This recipe is SO good & super easy. I keep my butter inventory in freezer anyway so it’s easy to grab a stick, grate 6 TBSP of it into the flour mixture and off you go. They are in the oven as I’m typing this review!
Eli
Their in the oven right now they are so easy to make i had to go in with my hands for making a double recipe but they smell amazing
Kelley
Great recipe! I am dairy free and gluten free. Made these with King Arthur’s Measure for Measure flour, Earth Balance’s vegan baking sticks, and Calafia Oat Milk. Turned out soft and fluffy.
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed, Kelley! Thank you for sharing your substitutions, too!
Elle
Can I make smaller biscuits with this recipe? My biscuit cutter is about 1 1/2″ in diameter.
Sam
Hi Elle! Absolutely! The biscuits will just need to bake for less time. Enjoy!
Caitlin
These were fast, easy, and tasty! Perfect side. My husband brought the rest to work on day two and they were devoured.
Sam
I’m so glad everyone enjoyed, Caitlin! Thank you so much for trying my recipe! 🙂
Eleni Bay
Can these biscuits be frozen after cutting, before the actual baking process? I would like to bake them on Thanksgiving.
Sam
Hi Eleni! Yes that would be fine, just keep in mind they will take longer to bake from frozen.
Craig Thompson
I made your ORANGE and cranberrie scones but in the end i needed to change it up as i had no cranberries. And subbed walnuts instead. With briushed egg andthem sprinkled sugar on top…
Kathy H
Absolutely yummy! I used buttermilk powder that you add to your dry ingredients (followed powdered buttermilk directions for amount of powder to add) and then I added the 3/4 c water to bring it together. They were perfect! Over 2″ tall and barely a little bit of crisp around the bottom edge. Just plain delicious. 🥰
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed them so much! Thank you for the feedback using the buttermilk powder. 🙂
Susan C Mortensen
I found your receipe a year ago. Just wonderful tasting, fast and easy to make. I am hosting a family reunion this Thanksgiving for 150 people. I have already made 90 biscuits. In 3 hours! Thank you!
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
Wow, that’s a lot of biscuits! We’re so happy you chose our recipe for your event. We hope everyone loves them, Susan! Enjoy ❤️
G G
These are the best biscuits I have ever made! Soft and flaky. Step by step easy to follow recipe.
Jace
Should these be refrigerated or just stored in a cool dry place? Great recipe!
Sam
Hi Jace! After they are baked they can be stored in an air tight container at room temperature. 🙂
Carolyn Smith
Would this biscuits ship well if shipping takes 3 days?
Sam
Hi Carolyn! I haven’t tried it but that may be pushing it to keep them fresh. 🙁