This Flaky Buttermilk Biscuits Recipe will help you make the most wonderfully delicious, fluffy, flaky layers biscuits for your family. Whip up a fresh batch for a Saturday breakfast, holiday brunch, or to serve with a bowl of stew on a chilly evening.
The Quest for the Perfect Biscuit
Biscuits are no joke. We take them very seriously! My husband gets homemade sausage gravy over biscuits approximately one time per year because, let’s face it, it’s not healthy diet approved! But still, it does make him very happy and I think that’s worth something. So sometime around Christmas every year I make him my amazing homemade sausage gravy and biscuits.
But the biscuit part has always been the challenge. I’m not a fan of biscuits from a can… unless they’re deep fried in a kettle over a campfire and then rolled in cinnamon sugar. But who wouldn’t like that?!
I’ve tried frozen biscuits and they’re okay. I do make a delicious 7-Up biscuit that we call “butter dip biscuits.” But I really wanted to make a perfect buttermilk biscuit that rises beautifully with lovely layers.
In my recipe testing, I learned a few key tricks to making biscuits that I’ll walk you through so you too can make this Flaky Buttermilk Biscuits Recipe.
Making Flaky Buttermilk Biscuits Recipe
Tip number 1: grate the butter.
Yep. Grate it. Like you would grate cheese.
You’ll want the butter to be very cold from the fridge. I unwrap one end of the butter to allow me to hold the wrapped end of the butter while I grate. Use a basic cheese grater and grate up the butter. I grate the butter onto parchment paper then place the butter back in the fridge. It needs to be really good and cold before you add it to your biscuits.
Why grate the butter? To make really good biscuits, you need the butter to be very cold. You don’t want it to soften at all while you’re incorporating the butter into the flour mixture. So grating the butter instead of chopping it makes it sooooo much easier to work it into the biscuit dough without overworking it or warming it up.
The dry ingredients get mixed together in a big bowl, then use a pastry blender to mix your cold butter into the dry mixture until it resembles coarse cornmeal with some larger chunks of butter still remaining. You do not want to over mix.
Tip number 2: a pastry blender is really essential in my book. It’s much easier than using two knives to cut the butter in. Click here to see a great pastry blender (almost 2,000 reviews give it 5-stars!) you can get from Amazon using my affiliate link.
See, coarse corn meal texture with some bigger chunks:
Add the buttermilk and stir just until the dough comes together. Next, turn the dough out onto a floured surface and roll out to about 1-inch in thickness.
Now comes the part that makes a BIG difference. I do a “letter fold.” This helps the dough turn into beautiful, flaky biscuits that will rise well and be easy to split open with a fork. This is tip number 3.
Think of how you would fold a letter. Fold one third of the dough over…
… then fold the whole thing over the bottom third. It basically turns it into a roll.
Roll the dough out again to 1-inch in thickness, then repeat the letter fold process. Finally, roll the dough out into a 9×9 inch square and use a 3-inch biscuit cutter to cut out 9 biscuits.
Important: a biscuit cutter is pretty critical to the success of your biscuits. Using a glass to cut the biscuits out can cause the sides of the biscuits to be compressed down and it will mess with the rise of the biscuits while they bake. Click here to see the biscuit cutter I used. I love this set!
To Buttermilk or Not to Buttermilk?
Before you bake your biscuits, you have three options:
- Brush just the tops of the biscuits with a little bit of buttermilk. This will give your biscuits a really lovely shine on the top. You may like this method, or you may not. It’s up to you and this step is not integral to the success of your biscuits, so you do you.
- Brush the tops of the biscuits with a little melted butter.
- Don’t brush them with anything.
You choose! I went with the buttermilk on top and I liked it. Very easy way to get a nice shine on the top of the biscuits.
Place your biscuits on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.
Then bake the biscuits for 10-15 minutes at 425° F. I know 10-15 minutes is quite a spread, but it really depends on your oven and your desired level of doneness. I set a timer for 10 minutes to check the biscuits then standby to check every minute or so until I like the color of the biscuits.
They really do rise so nicely! If they don’t over mixing could be the culprit, but also check out this video to learn how to test your baking powder. Do be sure to test it, even if it’s not expired! Many baking projects can be ruined if the baking powder is not up to the task.
I brush the finished biscuits with melted butter, because… why not?!
Butter and Jam
I suggest you serve your biscuits with softened butter, jam, apple butter, or honey. The best jam I can think of is homemade strawberry freezer jam. It’s delicious! Click here to see my recipe.
But, of course they AMAZING for a homemade biscuits and gravy breakfast!
PrintFlaky Buttermilk Biscuits Recipe
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 9 biscuits 1x
Description
This Flaky Buttermilk Biscuits Recipe will help you make the most wonderfully delicious, fluffy, flaky layers biscuits for your family. Whip up a fresh batch for a Saturday breakfast, holiday brunch, or to serve with a bowl of stew on a chilly evening.
Ingredients
- 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour, plus additional for kneading
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 2 teaspoons sugar
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup (1 stick) cold butter
- 1 cup cold buttermilk, plus additional for brushing on the biscuits
- 2 tablespoons butter, melted
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425F.
- Use a cheese grater to grate the butter into a small bowl. Place the butter in the refrigerator to chill while you move on to the next steps.
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt. Set aside.
- Add the grated butter to the dry mixture. Use a pastry blender or a fork to cut the butter into the flour mixture until it resembles coarse corn meal with some slightly larger pieces of butter.
- Add the cold butter milk and stir with a spatula just until the dough forms a soft ball. Do not over mix.
- Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Roll out into a triangle, about 1-inch thick. Fold the dough like a letter into thirds, then roll out again to 1-inch in thickness.
- Repeat the letter fold a second time, then roll the dough out into a 9×9 inch square. Use a 3-inch round biscuit cutter to cut out 9 biscuits (or simply cut the dough with a knife to form 9 square shaped biscuits).
- Place the biscuits on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat. Brush just the top of each biscuit with a little buttermilk to give the finished biscuits a pretty shine (optional).
- Bake the biscuits at 425F for 10-15 minutes, until golden brown around the edges.
- Brush the hot biscuits with melted butter.
- Serve the biscuits warm with butter and jam, apple butter, or gravy.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Category: Bread
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: Biscuits, buttermilk
Tell Me About the Biscuits!
After you make your Flaky Buttermilk Biscuits Recipe, come back and tell me how you like them! You can leave me a comment and recipe rating in the comments section below, tag me on Instagram at @MomNeedsChocolate, or snap a picture and upload it to the pin on Pinterest. Can’t wait to hear from you!
Leave a Reply