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.
Kayla
This recipe turned out beautifully! I only has 1% milk on hand and it worked just fine. I also just flattened out the dough, cut it into squares and then separated them on the sheet. Very fluffy and buttery biscuts!
Alisa
I’m planning to make the dough today then cook it tomorrow. We’re would be the best place to store it until then we the fridge or the freezer.
Sam
Hi Alisa! An air tight container in the refrigerator will work just fine. 🙂
Theresa Capri
I have made this recipe before and eaten them fresh baked. Delicious and thank you. I have read reviews that you can freeze them before or after baking. Do you find that, although they both work, that one is better than the other?(ie baking before then freezing, or freezing then baking)
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed them so much, Theresa! Personally, I always prefer a freshly baked biscuit, but yes either way will work. 🙂
Theresa Capri
I was needing to make biscuits for the biscuits and gravy for our church breakfast this morning using your recipe. I made 5 batches, and mixed up everything last night except the milk, grating frozen butter, then kept the dry mix in the freezer to mix with milk this morning. Bringing the ready to bake biscuits in to cook at the church (in their convection oven which does cook differently than my old bake oven), there were way more people in church today than usual so everyone was nervous there wouldn’t be enough. I raced home and made two more batches in less than 10 min. I didn’t have time to grate the butter, so cut the refrigerated butter super quickly with a knife into small chunks-like 1/4 inch wide and varying lengths crosswise and threw them into the flour in the kitchenaid bowl with the wire whisk and added the other dry ingredients as the kitchen aid was mixing. Added the milk and quickly pressed out as instructed, but cut into rectangles as no time to mess around. Cooked them up in time for the crowd and I couldn’t believe they actually turned out better than the ones I had grated the frozen butter! Go figure! In any case your recipe is good, even deviating the process a bit.
Paula Augustyn
Excellent! Never made or tasted such good biscuits. Thank you!
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
Thanks for giving them a try, Paula! Enjoy 😊
Emily L
Sooo excited to try these 😍 do you think they would turn out well if substituting 1:1 with GF all purpose flour?
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
Absolutely! Enjoy, Emily 😊
linda
These biscuits, with an addition 6 minutes in the oven, rose beautifully. They had a lovely crispy crust. I used buttermilk because I was out of regular milk. I used shortening rather than butter and cut it in with a pastry blender. The dough was just a little wet, so I added more milk. None of these were a “problem”. The problem was flavor. They had a tinny taste, perhaps 1T is too much baking powder? I went for it because I like a “high rise” biscuit rather than thin ones. My baking powder doesn’t expire until late of 2005. My grandson loved the crispy crust, he said he didn’t like the taste either. It is difficult, if not impossible to get aluminum free baking powder by me. Maybe that would remedy the situation.
Sam
Hi Linda! While I do personally prefer and now exclusively use aluminum free baking power, that shouldn’t be the issue and this recipe has also been made with baking powder that isn’t aluminum free. Are you using a generic baking powder or perhaps one that may have been exposed to some moisture? Was the tinny taste concentrated and quite potent? Sometimes the baking powder develops teeny tiny clumps in it if it’s generic or if it’s old or exposed to moisture and this can cause what you are describing. It’s also possible that it’s just a bad batch of baking powder.
Liz
I made this recipe several times and it’s always come out great. I follow the tips. I’ve doubled it. this is the first time that I found a recipe that actually tastes good I’ve always had trouble making these befor
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
So glad our recipe was a winner for you, Liz! Enjoy your biscuits 🥰
Anne
Oh my goodness did these pop up x3! What a great recipe! Thank you!!!
Elizabeth Gutierrez
Can I use lard in place of the 6 T of unsalted butter?
Sam
Hi Elizabeth! It could work, but I’m not sure if the flavor will be quite as good.
Jill
I love these! I’ve made them twice, and they turned out great – with one exception. I cannot get the tops to brown. I’ve tried brushing the tops with butter and it didn’t work. Any suggestions?
Sam
Hi Jill! You can try heavy cream or an egg wash, but since these don’t have baking soda in them they don’t brown a whole lot. They are much better not brown without the baking soda than browned with the baking soda. 🙂
Hayleigh
I am blown away by how good these are
Roxanne C
So yum! I was scrapping and used blended up leftover whole wheat frozen bread 1:1 with some left over whole grain oat flour instead of the all purpose flour, added a pinch of greens powder, and also substituted date syrup, and nut milk. They came out with a crispy crust and still with an unmistakable biscuit flavor and consistency. My son came up to the the egg sausage breakfast sandwich I made out of it, and though he questioned the look of the alternative biscuit, he said it smelled and tasted so good and he devoured it. Thank you for this recipe, it was a win!
Reyna
This is seriously such a great recipe. I use a food processor to mix the flour and butter though. I’ve made these biscuits dozens of times and other recipes I’ve tried have not been as good.
Jim
250g flour to 177ml milk. That’s 70.8% hydration. No way is this forming a cohesive dough, but more of a thick batter. Made it more or less work with some effort but I’ll be sticking to other recipes from now on.
Sam
I’m so sorry you had issues, Jim! Most people don’t so I’m wondering if something was accidentally mis-measured somewhere. You can actually watch me use those amounts in video and see the dough isn’t a thick batter.
Sherry Deatrick
I never made scratch biscuits before. this recipe gave me confidence to try. it’s about time I learned. it’s so easy and they’re delicious!
Jen
I’ve tried other recipes with tasteless luck 😖. This one worked! Thank you! I can now make biscuits that taste good 👍 😃
joanna
Finally made these and they were perfect!!! Thank you for another great recipe, Sam. You are my absolute go-to. 🙂
Sam
Thank you so much, Joanna! I’m so glad you enjoyed them so much! 🙂
Piper
These didn’t get golden or fluff up. They didn’t have that thick fluffy taste that you would expect in a homemade biscuit. They also didn’t taste that good. I ended up throwing them all away.
Sam
I’m so sorry to hear this happened, Piper! All of these things lead me to believe your baking powder is expired. 🙁 I hope you’ll give it another shot with some fresh ingredients! 🙂