Home » Breads and Muffins » Fluffy Buttermilk Biscuits
Published: May 14, 2013Updated: January 24, 2020Author:Jenn Laughlin
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These fluffy buttermilk biscuits are quick, easy, and delicious; you’ll never need to buy a sketchy biscuit mix again! They’re perfect alone, with your favorite jam, or as an epic breakfast sandwich to start your day with.
Today is actually National Buttermilk Biscuit day!
Yes, that’s a thing apparently.
A very delicious thing!
Clearly I need to make another batch tonight in honor of this fantabulous coincidence.
Are you with me?
Let’s do this!
Fluffy Buttermilk Biscuits
This easy peasy recipe yields 6 fluffy and flavorful biscuits.
Pile them high with all your favorite breakfast essentials for the most epic biscuit breakfast sandwich or serve them up the old fashioned way with butter and jam.
No matter how you spread them – they’re delicious!
Fluffy Buttermilk Biscuits
These fluffy buttermilk biscuits are quick, easy, and delicious; you’ll never need to buy a sketchy biscuit mix again! They’re perfect alone, with your favorite jam, or as an epic breakfast sandwich to start your day with.
In a large bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar.
Cut cold butter into the flour mixture using a pastry cutter or simply chop butter into tiny cubes with a knife and mash into the flour with a fork. I actually use a box cheese grater and coarsely grate my butter into the flour. It’s easy and saves me $$ on fancy gadgets!
Slowly pour in your milk while gently mixing with a fork.
Once all the milk has been added the dough will be a bit dry.
Begin to knead a few times to evenly distribute the moisture and, if still seriously dry after kneading, feel free to add an extra tablespoon of milk to the bowl. I typically knead my dough for about 8-10 strokes and stop manhandling it. Over kneading will toughen the dough.
Roll out [with your hands or a rolling pin] your dough onto a lightly floured surface and flatten until about 1 inch thick.
Use a biscuit cutter to cut out approximately 6 or 7 biscuits from the dough.
Lay flat, spaced, on an ungreased, nonstick baking pan and bake for 12-15 minutes at 425F. Mine are almost always done around the 12-13 min mark when the edges just barely turn golden.
Notes
Nutrition Facts below are estimated using an online recipe nutrition calculator. Adjust as needed and enjoy!
Every time I make these I nearly burn my face off stuffing a straight-from-the-oven biscuit in my face.
Since they’re best fresh, you can easily cut the recipe in half to make a mini batch for breakfast/brunch/brinner for two, or make the full batch and whip up a handful of fluffy egg sandwiches for weekday grab and go breakfasts.
They’re out of this world with chopped bell peppers, onion, and even tomato thrown into the mix too. Raid your crisper drawer and get your breakfast on!
You could even spread them with butter and jam. I totally want to try making The Busy Baker’s 3-Ingredient Chia Strawberry Jam – YUM!
more breakfast favorites
Need a quick breakfast sammie? Whip up a speedy Croissant Breakfast Sandwich!
Filling your freezer? These Breakfast Burritos are a must-make and totally vegetarian too!
You can also think out of the box and make these Breakfast Wonton Egg Cups with all your favorite veggies and a sprinkling of cheese.
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About The Author:
Jenn Laughlin
Hi! I’m Jenn and I’m here to help you eat your veggies! It'll be fun, painless, and pretty darn delicious as I teach you to plan your meals around fresh, seasonal produce with a little help from healthy freezer and pantry staples.
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 a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, and salt. Using a fork or pastry blender, cut in cold butter until mixture is crumbly and about the size of peas. Gradually add buttermilk, stirring just until dry ingredients are moistened. Turn out dough onto a lightly floured surface, and gently knead 3 to 4 times.
Overworking the dough will not only create a tough biscuit instead of a tender biscuit, but can also result in a flatter biscuit. The more you play with the dough, the warmer the dough becomes. If the fat becomes too warm it will melt into the flour and they won't rise as tall.
The butter version rises the highest — look at those flaky layers! The shortening biscuit is slightly shorter and a bit drier, too. Butter contains a bit of water, which helps create steam and gives baked goods a boost.
A hot 425° oven helps give the biscuits a nice oven spring, or initial rise caused by the reaction to the heat. Eat them fresh. Biscuits are best hot right out of the oven.
There are many theories about why Southern biscuits are different (ahem, better) than other biscuits—richer buttermilk, more butter, better grandmothers—but the real difference is more fundamental. Southern biscuits are different because of the flour most Southerners use. My grandmother swore by White Lily flour.
Use a heavy hand when working in the butter, but a light hand when working in the buttermilk. Too much stirring makes tough biscuits. Try to add the least amount of buttermilk as possible; too much moisture in a biscuits makes them not rise as high.
White wheat in general is around 9-12% protein, while the hard reds are 11-15%. As far as brands of flour, White Lily “all-purpose” flour has been my go-to for biscuit making. It's a soft red winter wheat, and the low protein and low gluten content keep biscuits from becoming too dense.
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).
Conclusion: More baking powder makes the biscuit rise more (imagine that!). About 1 tablespoon of baking powder per 2 cups of flour seems to be about the right amount, but even halving or doubling this amount should not ruin your biscuits.
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.
Biscuits are an exception to this rule: Placing them close to one another on your baking sheet actually helps them push each other up, as they impede each other from spreading outward and instead puff up skywards.
Fat is essential for the lightest and fluffiest biscuits! Butter adds more flavor, but shortening makes the biscuits more tender because it doesn't contain water or milk solids. The fat must be cold.
US biscuits are made today with chemical leaveners. The basic recipe uses flour, baking powder, a fat ( butter or Crisco or lard), salt, and buttermilk. The acid in the buttermilk activates the baking powder, the heat of the oven melts the fat. The biscuits rise and are tender and flaky.
Biscuit recipes tend to be egg-free, this makes them drier and the lack of protein to bind the mix helps achieve that crumbly texture. For super light, crumbly biscuits try grating or pushing the yolks of hard-boiled eggs through a sieve into the biscuit dough.
In terms of flakiness, the best fat for making biscuits is probably lard, and vegetable shortening is the next best. In terms of flavor, however, butter is undoubtedly the best, with lard a close second.
Introduction: My name is Patricia Veum II, I am a vast, combative, smiling, famous, inexpensive, zealous, sparkling person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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