Easy Sourdough Biscuits Recipe - Tender Homemade Biscuits! (2024)

FAQs

Why are my homemade biscuits tough? ›

Kneading too much and overhandling biscuit, shortcake and scone dough overdevelops the gluten in the flour, resulting in a chewy, tough baked product.

With biscuits, however, the goal is to avoid this chewiness. So, by adding hard-boiled egg yolk to a biscuit recipe, you'll thwart the formation of gluten, thereby resulting in a buttery, flakey crumb that'll dissolve in your mouth.

Take the biscuits and wrap them in a plastic cling film or zip pouch to make sure there's space for moisture to seep in. Lastly, put them in an airtight box and store inside a refrigerator to enjoy crunchy biscuits each time.

Likewise, the stickiness makes it tempting to over-knead biscuit dough, which will break down the butter into smaller pieces, shrinking the air pockets they will create during baking. The result: Tough, dense biscuits.

First, Day confirmed that storing biscuits in the fridge is fine as long as they're in an airtight container. This keeps the biscuit fresh for up to five days. “For long term storage, wrap biscuits in plastic wrap, then with tin foil. Store for up to one month in the freezer,” she said.

Use Cold Butter for Biscuits

For flaky layers, use cold butter. When you cut in the butter, you have coarse crumbs of butter coated with flour. When the biscuit bakes, the butter will melt, releasing steam and creating pockets of air. This makes the biscuits airy and flaky on the inside.

In the presence of a liquid, the acidity of the cream of tartar activates the baking soda, causing it to start bubbling away, and that, in turn, is what makes the biscuits rise.

Adding eggs to a dough makes it softer and richer,more like challah or sandwich bread. There's nothing wrong with that, and you can certainly roll it out and make a flatbread with it, but it won't have the chew of a good pizza dough, and the bottom won't get as crisp. It will be something other than pizza.

Cover the dough loosely with a kitchen towel and allow it to rest for 30 minutes. Gently pat out the dough some more, so that the rectangle is roughly 10 inches by 6 inches. Cut dough into biscuits using a floured biscuit cutter (or even a glass, though its duller edge may result in slightly less tall biscuits).

As the biscuits sit around, even in a tin, the sugar absorbs moisture from the air. Leave sugar in a bowl in the tropics, for example, and it will absorb so much water it will eventually turn into a liquid! As the sugar in the biscuit absorbs more moisture, it becomes softer and softer and less and less appetising.

What makes biscuits rise and fluffy? ›

Fully incorporating the butter and flour guarantees tender, airy biscuits every time. Low-protein flours keep biscuits fluffy and light, never tough. Yogurt provides both hydration and structure, for biscuits that bake up straight and tall but moist.

There is some actual science behind why White Lily flour is lighter than others and, thus, better suited for items like biscuits and cakes.

While underworked dough can simply be fixed by a little more kneading, severely overworked dough cannot be fixed. Instead, the overworked dough will result in a hard loaf that will likely not be eaten. It's important not to overwork your dough and continually check for overworking throughout the kneading process.

Move the cooled biscuits to an airtight container.

Plastic containers or tins will also work, but you have less control over the amount of air sealed in with the biscuits. Biscuits stored this way may dry out faster than usual. Another option is to wrap the biscuits up tightly in a few layers of foil or plastic wrap.

More fat will make softer biscuits, which could be a good thing. Too little fat will result in dry and heavy biscuits. The type of flour you use is important. Don't use bread flour unless the recipe calls for it and avoid whole wheat and other whole grain flours.

If you can, avoid the eggs for the dough. They have a very high moisture rate which tends to make the biscuits "spongy" despite baking. As an alternative to eggs, you can add apple juice to the dough, or preferably a drizzle of seed oil.

Let them cool completely before moving them around. Warm cookies are fragile and prefer to be left alone. If you move fresh cookies while they're too warm, they may crumble. Let them be until they cool off and firm up.