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.
Maya Daniels
These were delicious! The only problem I had was they were pretty salty for my husband and my taste. Next time I will probably use 1/2 a teaspoon of salt instead of a full teaspoon. Other than that, they were very layered and flaky! Delicious! Thank you!
Sam
I’m so glad to hear you enjoyed, Maya! 🙂
Hana
Hi Sam. I was wondering if I could make the dough and refrigerate it, and then cut out the biscuits and bake the next day?
Sam
Hi Hana! You can make the dough a day ahead of time. Just make sure you wrap the dough tightly so it doesn’t dry out in the refrigerator. 🙂
Jenni
I made these this morning…so easy and yummy. I prefer to bake and cook from scratch but I have to say that cutting in the butter is one of my least favorite things to do. The idea of grating the butter is excellent. I’ll be using that hint all the time now. Thanks!
Sam
I’m so glad to hear you enjoyed the biscuits, Jenni! thanks for commenting 🙂
Ronald Perry
I so enjoy making this recipe it is very easy to make and taste great.
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed them, Ronald! 🙂
Kathleen Grant
Idk what I did wrong. But the dough was so dry. I went back and check my measurements. And I added all the ingredients. And followed all the advice. And I still messed it up. I wanted this to work so badly!
Sam
Hi Kathleen! I would check if you might be accidentally over-measuring your flour. For best results use a kitchen scale to measure the flour, but if you don’t have one make sure to stir the flour, spoon it into a measuring cup, and then level it off (never scoop the flour directly into the measuring cup as that can pack it in). I hope that helps!
Kathleen M Grant
Welp that’s exactly what I did. Thank you very much for the advice!
Sam
It’s so easy to do, you aren’t alone. I definitely used to do it more than I’d like to admit, so I switched to weight measurements. I hope you love the biscuits. 🙂
Julie
I just wanted to add that some brands of flour are “thirstier” than others. I have had this happen when changing brands of flour. I have read it also depends on your location and sometimes the time of year. You might try a different brand of flour.
Serina
I used this recipe this morning. I loved it and it was very easy. I had about 11 biscuits. It was maybe due me using a glass rim to make my biscuit cut outs. However, I like the size and it was enough biscuits thickness for me. Also, I used unsweetened vanilla almond milk instead of whole milk.
Sam
Im so happy to hear the recipe was such a success! Thank you for commenting, Serina! 🙂
Shawn Ramirez
👍🏼🤪😎
Diane Boerstler
So easy and absolutely delicious 😋😍 My four and six year old helped me make these, we used the food processor to cut in butter and made four batches thinking we’d need that much to feed our huge family. Ended up freezing two batches for later because these are huge, fluffy and filling.
Sam
I’m so happy to hear this! Thank you for commenting, Diane, I appreciate it 🙂
Cheryl
Perfect biscuits every time!! My family loves these biscuits and I love how consistent they are to make. Thank you!!
Sam
I am so glad everyone enjoys the biscuits so much, Cheryl! 🙂
Shelby
These were amazing! Family was definitely impressed, will be saving this recipe! Also, I love that you include all these tips for how to handle the dough and butter. It may be common sense to some people, but I have had so much trouble in the past making biscuits and I suspect I was making a lot of rookie mistakes.
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed the biscuits, Shelby! 🙂
Nikki
These turned out so good! My partner is already asking for me to make them again. Do you think these would freeze good?
Sam
Hi Nikki! I have not frozen them myself, but I know others have with success. 🙂
Matt
Loved it! Great butter only recipe!
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed the biscuits, Matt! 🙂
Kelli
Trying this now for our son’s birthday breakast he requested (chipped beef gravy over biscuits). Am wondering if the sugar is necessary? Our family is trying to cut back on our intake of that. Think I will leave it out this time, esp. since gravy is going over them, and see how they turn out. Thanks for sharing this recipe. Looking forward to trying them!
Sam
Hi Kelli! The sugar helps with the flavor, but you could leave it out. 🙂
Kelli
They were wonderful without the sugar! Everyone enjoyed them. Thank you!
Jane
Such an easy recipe. And yes, I did have all the ingredients on hand. They turned out light and flakey. And so delicious. My daughter already asked me to make them again.
Sam
I’m so happy to hear that you (and your daughter) enjoyed the biscuits, Jane! Thank you so much for commenting!
Heather Murray-Herlocher
Wow, you are a genius. I’ve never seen a biscuit recipe that recommends grating the butter. It was so EASY! I will make these fluffy, yummy biscuits all the time and my daughters will be ecstatic!
Sam
Thank you so much, Heather! I hope everyone loves the biscuits. I’m sure they will. 😉
Marilyn
So good and so easy. The best biscuits I’ve ever made and my whole family agrees. Thanks for sharing your great recipe!
Sam
Thank you so much, Marilyn! I am so glad you enjoyed the biscuits. 🙂
Nadia
Made these biscuits one more for my husband. They were marvelous. They were flaky and seemed to melt in our mouths. All I had to cut them with was a heart shaped cookie cutter, but they were perfect!!! I have made them about five times since then. We absolutely love them!!! Great recipe!!!
Sam
I am so glad everyone enjoyed the biscuits, Nadia! 🙂
Leslie
Absolutely perfect! My husband asked if they came from a can when he saw the beautiful layers; he knew better once he tasted them!! Thanks!!
Sam
Yay! I’m so glad they were a hit, Leslie! 🙂