Our easiest ever biscuit recipes (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to a good biscuit? ›

The secret to the best biscuits is using very cold butter and baking powder. We've made a lot of biscuits, but this easy biscuits recipe is the one we turn to the most (they are so fluffy!). See our easy drop biscuits and cheese drop biscuits for even easier biscuits.

Crisco may be beneficial for other baking applications, but for biscuit making, butter is the ultimate champion!

Just as important as the fat is the liquid used to make your biscuits. Our Buttermilk Biscuit recipe offers the choice of using milk or buttermilk. Buttermilk is known for making biscuits tender and adding a zippy tang, so we used that for this test.

But if you chill your pan of biscuits in the fridge before baking, not only will the gluten relax (yielding more tender biscuits), the butter will harden up. And the longer it takes the butter to melt as the biscuits bake, the more chance they have to rise high and maintain their shape. So, chill... and chill.

SouthernKitchen.com says, "Ask any Southern chef or sagacious biscuit grandma and you'll hear a pattern emerge: they all swear by White Lily flour."

The extra fat in the heavy cream is helpful because buttermilk in stores is often “low-fat” buttermilk. Buttermilk. The buttermilk adds a tangy flavor to the biscuit and helps hydrate the dough just enough to create a nice structure for our biscuits.

Use good butter and dairy

Because biscuit recipes call for so few ingredients, it's important that every one is high quality—you'll really taste the difference. Catherine recommends splurging a bit on a grass-fed butter or European-style butter (now's the time to reach for Kerrygold!).

The reason: The butter has not been incorporated evenly, leaving pockets of your cooked biscuits that are dry, dense, and filled with flour.

Mason Dixie Biscuit Co.

And the flavors were more from-scratch as well. According to Josh Rink in the Test Kitchen, “This brand feels like it uses real ingredients like a homemade biscuit.” And Josh is right: Flour, buttermilk, butter, milk, sugar, baking powder and salt are the only ingredients Mason Dixie Biscuit Co.

What makes Southern biscuits so good? ›

Here's the Reason Biscuits in the South Really Are Better

The not-so-secret ingredient they rely upon is soft wheat flour. Soft wheat thrives in temperate, moist climates like that of the mid-Atlantic, so cooks in those areas have had access to its special flour for a long time.

A hot oven helps biscuits bake—and rise—quickly. We recommend 475˚F for 15 minutes.

Aberffraw biscuits are said to be Britain's oldest biscuit! The Welsh shortbread is pressed with the shape of a scallop shell and are made with high quality ingredients to create a rich, buttery shortbread.

The two keys to success in making the best biscuits are handling the dough as little as possible as well as using very cold solid fat (butter, shortening, or lard) and cold liquid. When the biscuits hit the oven, the cold liquid will start to evaporate creating steam which will help our biscuits get very tall.

CHARACTERISTICS OF GOOD BISCUITS

A good biscuit is symmetrical in shape, has vertical sides, a level and fairly smooth top, and is covered with a tender, golden brown crust. The inside is light, fluffy, flaky, creamy white, free from yellow or brown spots, and the small 'holes are evenly distributed.

As it turns out, adding hard-boiled egg yolks to your biscuit dough is a way to ward off an overworked, tough dough that can be the downfall of a butter-based pastry. When the trick is employed, the pastry shatters and then dissolves in your mouth quickly, tasting like a knob of flaky butter.