Best Homemade Southern Biscuits!

Welcome to the BEST ever homemade southern biscuit recipe. These biscuits come together with few ingredients and only about 15 minutes of your time. Perfect for slathering with butter, honey, jams, or covering with a spoonful of sausage gravy. Get ready to ditch the store bought biscuits because these are so easy to make at home and about 1000x better than anything you can buy!

 

Why I Love This Biscuit recipe

• Simple Ingredients: These biscuits come together with simple ingredients you probably already have on hand.
• Perfect Side Dish: These are the perfect side to serve with all your favorite southern meals such as Texas Chicken Fried Steak or Pork Chops with Cream of Mushroom Soup.
• Family Favorite: Serving breads and biscuits with a meal is a sure way to please the entire family!

How to make Biscuits:

• Freeze your butter. This recipe requires COLD butter. To ensure that it’s nice and cold, just place a stick of butter in the freezer at least 20 minutes before you plan to make the biscuits. If you’re planning ahead you can place the butter in the freezer earlier.
• Mix dry ingredients. Stir together the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Mix with a fork to make sure the ingredients are well combined.
• Grate the butter. This will make sure the butter is nicely dispersed throughout the biscuits creating a soft and tender bite. If the butter is too cold to grate from leaving in the freezer for a long time, just let it sit out for a couple minutes to warm slightly then grate. We want the butter as cold as possible. I find it best to leave the wrapper on one end to hold the stick while I grate, this helps prevent the butter from softening too much while in my hands.

• Mix butter with the dry ingredients. Use your hands for this. The best advise I ever learned in regards to biscuits comes from Alton Brown. He said that he was never able to replicate his grandmother’s biscuits, until he watched her closely and realized that the arthritis in her hands was actually part of the method. Her hands were not able to be forceful when working with the biscuit dough. Be gentle.
• Add the cream. Ok. Yes I use cream in my biscuits. You can use buttermilk, I prefer cream. I don’t know..maybe the extra fats in the cream work some magic, but I get the most tender, soft biscuits ever when I use cream. Gently combine the dough together. I still use my hands for this. Messy. Yes. But again, biscuit making comes down mostly to the method.

How to make the BEST homemade biscuits:

• Press the dough out to about 3/4 inch thick. When you remove the dough from the bowl it will be crumbly, it’s ok. Just keep pressing the dough together gently and press it out with your fingertips into a rectangular shape about 12 inches by 6 inches, and 3/4 of an inch thick. Then fold the dough over. Add sprinkles of flour as needed to your work surface or the dough if it’s too sticky. Continue doing this until you have folded the dough over 4-5 times. This is called laminating, and creates the layers in the biscuits.
• Cut biscuits out. Brush with cream. Bake. I know, most recipes say to brush with butter before baking, I don’t feel that did much, but a quick brush with some cream helps give the tops a nice texture while they bake. I don’t the reasoning, but it’s another bit of magic.
• Brush with melted butter. Serve. After baking, brush with some melted butter, and eat up! These biscuits are best when served warm and out of the oven.

Can I make Biscuit dough ahead of time?

This particular dough can’t be made completely ahead of time. What you can do to save some time if needed is mix together the dry ingredients. You can also grate and add the butter. Then mix this together. Cover with some plastic wrap and store in the refrigerator. This will keep the butter cold. Then when you are ready to make the biscuits you can mix in the cream and continue with making the actual biscuits.

How do I make flaky Biscuits?

Making flaky layers in the biscuits comes down to the method. Pressing the dough out into a rectangle, then folding the dough over creates a layer. Doing this 4-5 times creates all the layers throughout the dough. Be gentle with the dough, use your fingertips not the heel of your palm, and don’t use a rolling pin.  When you cut the biscuits out you will see the layers, as the biscuits bake the layers will stay and you will be able to easily split the biscuit in half and enjoy all those soft, tender layers.

Most Important Tips for this Biscuit Recipe:

• Keep the butter cold. Make sure to freeze the butter before handling it to grate. This helps keep it cold.
• Be gentle with the dough. Again, remember the advise of Alton Brown who watched his grandma make biscuits with her arthritic hands (as mentioned above). The softer touch you have with the dough, the softer and more tender your biscuits will be.
• Don’t use a rolling pin, press the dough out with your hands. Use your fingertips, not the heel of your palm. Your fingers are more gentle.
• After you cut the dough into the biscuits, you can’t just press together the leftover dough and cut more biscuits. Due to the layers we formed, your biscuits will come out all wonky. You will need to gently knead the dough, then press it out and create the layers again.
• It’s best to bake all the biscuits together at once, as quickly as you can, so that the butter doesn’t warm up too much. After you cut out the first batch, place the try in the fridge to keep the biscuits cold while you cut out the next batch. Then bake all together.