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.
Amie
Delicious light and fluffy! I hand mixed and they were amazing. Added lemon juice to whole milk and they definitely had that tangy buttermilk flavor. Can’t say enough-Delicious!
Amanda
This is it. No need to look further. Made as directed and they were absolutely delicious. Thank you.
Susan Waters
I used self rising flour and buttermilk. Turned out good!
Carmen
Can dough be frozen for later use?
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
Yes! Enjoy 😊
Sandra P Taylor
Yup, this is it. Look no further. ♥️
Anette
Fantastic recipe! So easy and so buttery and delicious. They really came out beautiful. I made a garlic herb butter to drizzle on top. Wow. So good.
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
Yum! We’re so glad you enjoyed them, Anette!
Hope
These are the BEST!!!!!!! I have made them about ten times for my family and Southern relatives. Everyone loved them! Thank you so much! P.S. My family calls me “Hope Crocker” for my biscuits. My whole family said they were spectacular, even wanting the recipe. (Which I refused to give, you know, wanting to keep my
“job”) Tips: these need about 15-18 minutes in the oven, and work great with a gluten-free flour blend (Bob’s Red Mill is best) THANK YOU SO MUCH! I will never use a different recipe.
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
Thanks so much for the sweet review, Hope! Your secret is safe with us 😉
Carol
Bi so good to know about the gluten free flour. I also used coconut milk and it worked well
Linda
I added a cup and a half of shredded white sharp cheese. Amazing!
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
Sounds delicious! We’re so glad you enjoyed them, Linda 😊
Ursula N
Very good & easy to make 👍
Almonda
Have a question can you use salted butter?
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
Hi Almonda! You can use your salted butter and reduce the salt to a scant 3/4 teaspoon. Enjoy!
Jeannie
Tastes great but I only got 4 biscuits but I do make mine large
Sue S.
Very good taste and texture. I nearly got 12 biscuits from the base recipe. Also I did not use a rolling pin to flatten out the dough. Mine came out crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.😋
Jason J.
Super-easy recipe to follow. I appreciate having the weight measurements for the flour, milk and butter. I used buttermilk, and the biscuits were excellent!
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
We’re glad the weights are helpful, Jason! Enjoy your biscuits 🥰
Cat Nash
I only had Half and Half instead of milk. Turned out perfectly yummy. Thank you!
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
Glad you enjoyed them, Cat! Thanks for trying our recipe 🥰
Melissa Poirier
I rate this recipe a 5/5!
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
So glad it was a hit for you, Melissa! Thanks for the review ❤️
Kaeri Carroll
Doubled the recipe and made this using half white whole wheat flour and half regular white flour, they still came out fluffy and delicious with lots of wonderful layers! Making a batch of honey butter to go with them now! (Half will go into the freezer to bake off another day.)
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
Thanks for letting us know how they turned out for you, Kaeri! Enjoy ❤️
Cass
This was my first time making biscuits and these turned out amazing! I used buttermilk and a cup to cut them, which gave me 11 biscuits. I used my stovetop Omnia oven on my gas cooker and the tops didn’t darken, but the texture came out perfect. Thanks again for sharing another great recipe, Sam!
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
Thanks for letting us know how they turned out for you, Cass! 😊
Melissa Poirier
Absolute wonderful recipe! I use almost a full cup of Plain prebiotic keifer instead of milk. Tastes amazing!
Carol
Thank you for a wonderful recipe!
They turned out GREAT!!
Sharon
Made these to go with some Chicken a la King for dinner and they are probably the best biscuits I have ever made in my life, and were so easy to make. I did the box grater method with frozen butter and they turned out amazing. Definitely saving this recipe.