Description
My favorite homemade buttermilk biscuit recipe — easy to make, perfectly soft and tall and flaky, and always SO buttery and delicious.
Ingredients
- 2 cups (284 grams) all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1 tablespoon light brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 6 tablespoons (85 grams) very cold butter*, diced into 1/2-inch cubes
- 1 cup cold buttermilk
- optional toppings: extra melted butter and flaky sea salt
Instructions
- Mix the dry ingredients: Combine the flour, baking powder, brown sugar, salt and baking soda in a large mixing bowl. Stir briefly to combine.
- Cut in the butter. Sprinkle the diced butter over the dry ingredient mixture. Use a pastry cutter or two forks (or a food processor*) to cut the butter into the dry ingredients until it is well-mixed and forms pea-sized chunks of butter.
- Add the buttermilk. Pour in the cold buttermilk and stir until the dough until it is just combined. (Try to avoid over-mixing the dough.)
- Form the dough. Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface. Use your hands to quickly shape the dough into a small rectangle. Use a rolling pin to roll the dough out evenly until it is about 1/2-inch thick.
- Fold the dough. Then fold the dough on top of itself into thirds (like you are folding an envelope, see image above). Rotate the dough 90 degrees. Then repeat the folding process a second time, rotate, repeat the folding process a third time, rotate.
- Cut the dough. Roll the dough out once more into a roughly 10 x 5-inch rectangle. Then use a 2 to 2.5-inch biscuit cutter to firmly cut the dough into 8 circles, taking care not to twist the biscuit cutter at all when cutting the dough, and arrange the biscuits evenly on the prepared baking sheet.* If you would like, re-roll the remaining dough scraps and cut out 1 or 2 more biscuits.
- Heat the oven. Heat the oven to 450°F (232°C). And transfer the biscuits to your freezer or refrigerator for 15 minutes as the oven heats.
- Bake. Once the oven is ready to go, bake the biscuits for 10-12 minutes, or until they achieve your desired level of browning on top. Transfer the baking sheet to a wire rack. Then, if you would like, brush the tops of the biscuits with some melted butter and sprinkle with a pinch of flaky sea salt.
- Serve. Serve warm and enjoy!
Notes
Chilling the butter: If you have the extra time, I recommend chilling your butter in the freezer for 30 minutes before adding it to the recipe so that it can be extra cold. (I also recommend chilling the flour too!)
Alternate food processor shortcut: Alternately, if you happen to own a food processor, you can add the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, light brown sugar, salt and baking soda) to the food processor and pulse a few times to combine. Sprinkle the cubed butter on top of the dry ingredients and pulse a few more times until it forms pea-sized clumps. Then transfer the mixture to a large mixing bowl, stir in the buttermilk, and continue on with the recipe as directed.
Arranging the biscuits on the baking sheet: If you prefer your biscuits to have crispy sides, like I do, you can space them evenly apart on the baking sheet. Or if you would prefer taller biscuits with softer sides, you can place them side-by-side so that they are touching on the baking sheet (or you could opt to bake them in a cast-iron pan or pie plate instead).
Source: Recipe very slightly adapted from Food.com.
