Best quick biscuit recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to a good biscuit? ›

The secret to the best biscuits is using very cold butter and baking powder. We've made a lot of biscuits, but this easy biscuits recipe is the one we turn to the most (they are so fluffy!). See our easy drop biscuits and cheese drop biscuits for even easier biscuits.

Crisco may be beneficial for other baking applications, but for biscuit making, butter is the ultimate champion!

*Substitute buttermilk, light cream, or heavy cream for the whole milk, if you prefer; use enough of whatever liquid you choose to bring the dough together readily, without you having to work it too much. The higher-fat liquid you use, the more tender and richer-tasting your biscuits will be.

As it turns out, adding hard-boiled egg yolks to your biscuit dough is a way to ward off an overworked, tough dough that can be the downfall of a butter-based pastry. When the trick is employed, the pastry shatters and then dissolves in your mouth quickly, tasting like a knob of flaky butter.

Use good butter and dairy

Because biscuit recipes call for so few ingredients, it's important that every one is high quality—you'll really taste the difference. Catherine recommends splurging a bit on a grass-fed butter or European-style butter (now's the time to reach for Kerrygold!).

Make a batch of the basic biscuit dough, then chill until firm, roll out and cut out shapes as above. Bake on a non-stick baking tray for 10-12 minutes until pale golden. Carefully transfer to a wire rack to cool and crisp up.

Buttermilk adds a nice tang to the biscuit flavor and helps them rise better.

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.

The reason: The butter has not been incorporated evenly, leaving pockets of your cooked biscuits that are dry, dense, and filled with flour.

Here's the Reason Biscuits in the South Really Are Better

The not-so-secret ingredient they rely upon is soft wheat flour. Soft wheat thrives in temperate, moist climates like that of the mid-Atlantic, so cooks in those areas have had access to its special flour for a long time.

Which milk is best for biscuits? ›

If you are going to substitute a non-cultured liquid into your biscuits, I'd strongly recommend using low-fat milk, or even whole milk, instead of cream. Both will give you a more pleasant biscuit, with just the right amount of fat that you'll still want to slather the inside with butter.

The biscuits take about 14 to 16 minutes of baking. You can rotate them after about 8 minutes to get a more even bake. Keep a close eye on them, they should be pale to golden brown in color. Remove from the oven and serve warm.

A hot oven helps biscuits bake—and rise—quickly. We recommend 475˚F for 15 minutes. Remove them from the oven as soon as they are lightly brown.

Not only does sugar add flavour, it also has other important properties. During baking, the sugar in the dough makes the biscuit go slightly brown. This also produces roasted flavours, which are important for the taste of our biscuits. Both are chemical processes caused by the heating of sugar and proteins.

The process simply involves using a pastry brush to lightly coat the top of your unbaked biscuits with a liquid ingredient known to create that browning effect once heated. One of the most popular choices for this is cream, which imparts a rich golden color to the crust.

In general, a rolled biscuit of desirable quality has a golden brown, smooth and crisp crust without brown specks, and a tender and flaky crumb; it is expected to be symmetrical in shape with a high height, flat top and straight side (Learning and Food Resource of Oregon State University, 2012, see web references).

The two keys to success in making the best biscuits are handling the dough as little as possible as well as using very cold solid fat (butter, shortening, or lard) and cold liquid. When the biscuits hit the oven, the cold liquid will start to evaporate creating steam which will help our biscuits get very tall.

A hot oven helps biscuits bake—and rise—quickly. We recommend 475˚F for 15 minutes. Remove them from the oven as soon as they are lightly brown.