Recipe: Flaky Buttermilk Biscuits
Flaky Buttermilk Biscuits
Ingredients:
2 cups / 10 oz. All-Purpose Flour
1/4 tsp Baking Soda
1 tbsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Salt
6 tbsp Unsalted Butter, chilled
1 cup Buttermilk (or buttermilk substitute; see directions below)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 450˚F
Weigh out 10 oz. of flour into a large bowl. If you don’t have a scale, spoon flour into measuring cup and measure 2 cups flour into bowl (this method is wonderful).
Add baking soda, baking powder and salt to the flour and stir well to combine
Cut the butter into the flour mixture using a pastry cutter, two forks, or a food processor (if you’re unfamiliar with cutting butter into flour this article is a fabulous guide)
Add buttermilk to flour and butter mixture and gently fold together with a spatula until it’s just combined and there are no dry spots left
Don’t have buttermilk in the fridge? Neither do I usually! Make a buttermilk substitute by adding 1 tbsp of white distilled vinegar to a 1 cup measuring cup, and then add milk or half-and-half until the measuring cup is full. Stir well and let sit for a few minutes.
Dairy-free beverages like Oat, Almond, Soy milk etc. can be used, they just yield a less rich biscuit.
Generously flour a flat surface and turn the dough out. Using flour-dusted hands, gently press the dough flat, then cut into four equal pieces. Stack the dough pieces one on top of the other and press flat again. Repeat two to 3 more times until the dough has lots of layers — this is the trick to truly flaky biscuits!
Once you have your layers, gently press the dough flat one last time (avoid a rolling pin to avoid gluten development) and either cut into squares, or use a round cutter to make circular biscuits. Place biscuits on a baking sheet (I highly recommend using baking parchment or a silicone mat for these) and, if possible, place in the fridge for 30 minutes before baking — this helps the biscuits rise evenly. No time? No problem, you can bake them as-is, they will just look a bit more rustic.
Bake for 10-12 minutes until the tops are a light golden brown. Let cool for 5 minutes and then enjoy!
Biscuit Story Time:
When I was growing up, I lived in an English muffin household. The only biscuits I recall eating were on family car trips; the quick, slapdash kind you find in roadside breakfast joints. They weren’t bad, but they weren’t the kind of biscuits you crave on a cozy weekend morning.
My first introduction to crave-worthy biscuits came from my husband. Back in college, when we were just friends, he would occasionally bake us biscuits from his special family recipe. It’s not the most traditional biscuit recipe but it yields delicious biscuits and warms my heart every time.
After college I began experimenting with a biscuit recipe of my own. I didn’t want to step on my husband’s biscuit-baking toes so I focused on a truly Southern-style biscuit; that way we’d each have a special kind of biscuit and competition would never rear its flour-dusted head.
A true Southern biscuit recipe is an elusive thing. Everyone has a family favorite recipe that is secret-but-not-actually-secret and even though they’re all similar the variations mean no two biscuits are ever alike. This caused me much grief in my early biscuit-baking days. However, they all have the same two things in common: a low-protein flour (e.g. White Lily) and buttermilk.
Low-protein flour minimizes gluten and buttermilk reacts with the leavening agents for a biscuit that is fluffy and tender, but I wanted to avoid specialty ingredients because biscuit craving can strike anytime. After much test baking I arrived at a recipe that uses everyday ingredients but yields a biscuit that is nearly perfectly Southern. And if you happen to have White Lily flour or real buttermilk on hand, the biscuit will be perfectly Southern.
Either way, these biscuits are fluffy, tender, and perfectly flaky thanks to cutting and layering the dough before baking. They’re also incredibly easy to bake, plus you can keep the leftovers in the fridge for up to a week which is perfect for entertaining or houseguests. Pro tip: mix in a half cup of shredded cheese and some chopped green onions for a savory biscuit that is a hit at potlucks (I speak from personal experience).