American · Baking · Easy
Buttermilk Biscuits
Tall, flaky, and golden, with layers you can pull apart by hand. Make a double batch, because half of them will vanish before dinner is served.
The whole recipe in 60 seconds
Buttermilk Biscuits, in 5 ideas
- Freeze the cut biscuits on a tray, then bake straight from frozen, adding 3 minutes.
- A little honey butter turns these into the first thing gone from the table.
- Cut them small and they become the perfect topper for leftover turkey pot pie.
- Grate frozen butter on a box grater for the flakiest layers of all.
- No buttermilk? A cup of milk with a tablespoon of lemon juice stands in fine.
What you need
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 1/2 cup cold butter, cubed
- 1 cup cold buttermilk, plus more for brushing
- 2 tbsp melted butter, for the tops
How to make it
Directions
- Heat the oven to 450°F and line a baking sheet with parchment.
- Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and salt in a large bowl.
- Cut the cold butter into the flour with your fingers or a pastry cutter until the pieces are pea sized, with a few bigger flakes left.
- Pour in the buttermilk and stir just until a shaggy dough forms. Stop the moment it comes together.
- Turn the dough onto a floured surface, fold it over itself 4 or 5 times to build layers, and pat it to about 1 inch thick.
- Cut straight down with a floured round cutter, no twisting. Place the biscuits close together on the sheet and brush with buttermilk.
- Bake 12 to 14 minutes, until tall and deeply golden. Brush with melted butter and serve warm.
Cold is everything. If your kitchen is warm, chill the cut biscuits for 10 minutes before baking so the butter stays in layers instead of melting into the flour.