Buttermilk Biscuits

Steps to Make It

Gather your ingredients.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Take the butter out of the refrigerator or freezer, the colder it is the better this recipe will work! Use a box grater to grate the butter. You can do a combination of fine and thick shreds.

Combine all dry ingredients and butter in a bowl. Just gently toss to cover the butter shreds with the dry mixture to coat the butter shreds.

Slowly add in buttermilk to the bowl of butter and flour, mixing with a wooden spoon or spatula until it becomes a soft dough.

Turn out dough onto a clean flour surface.

Roll out into a thick sheet, about 1/2 inch thick.

Fold the dough in half.

Fold the dough in half again. Then roll out to 1/2 inch thick again. Repeat at least one more time. Finish with a rectangular sheet that is rolled out to 1 inch thick.

Cut straight down (no twisting, it will prevent them from rising properly) using a biscuit cutter.

Place the biscuits onto an un-greased baking sheet. Don't put them too far apart on the sheet or they will fall when baking. Don't put them too close together either or they will not bake all the way through.

Bake for 15 minutes, until golden brown. Top with melted butter if you wish!

If you over-mix the dough and the butter begins melting before it is baking in the oven then there will be very little rise. The melting of the butter, reacting with the leavening is what creates the rise as it bakes.

You may have rolled out the sheet of dough too thin. If you want nice, thick and fluffy biscuits the sheet of dough needs to be thick.

It's also helpful to fold the dough as detailed above. This helps create the lofty, flaky layers.

What is the best fat for biscuits?

Butter definitely has the best flavor and if your butter is super cold you can have light and flaky biscuits.

Shortening also works and helps to create the light and flaky layers since it does not have water or milk solids. But it doesn't taste great, so your biscuits will be laking in flavor.

You can do a combination of both butter and shortening if you want the best of both worlds However, we still love 100% butter!

You can completely substitute the butter and buttermilk with cream if you wish. This provides enough fat and liquid and still provides great flavor. The texture will be a bit more like a scone and less like a biscuit.