These biscuits are fantastic and take just a few minutes to mix up and bake. Add them to your breakfast with sausage gravy, have them with a warm beef stew on a cold night or serve with jam for a delicious dessert. I hope you enjoy!
Best Buttery Biscuits
Ingredients
- 2½ cups AP flour
- 1 T sugar (white or brown)
- 1 T baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1½ sticks cold unsalted butter (1 stick for dough, ½ stick for pan)
- 1 egg, slightly beaten
- 1 cup milk (I like to sour the milk by adding 2-3 capfuls of lemon juice, then letting it sit for a few minutes)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425℉.
- In a good sized mixing bowl, mix flour and sugar.
- Cut the cold butter into pieces and cut into the flour with a pastry blender until it is crumbly. If you don't have a pastry blender you can use a fork.
- Add in the salt and baking powder, mix just slightly with the pastry blender or fork.
- Add the soured milk and the egg. Mix carefully with a rubber spatula until it is just combined.
- Line your counter with parchment and dust with flour. Turn out dough onto the counter and dust the top with flour. The dough will be pretty sticky so add more flour as needed to not be gloppy. Carefully knead in the additional flour until it's just barely dry enough to not be glued to your hands. Work the dough as little as possible!
- Pat out the dough with your hands until it's ½-¾" thick. Using a 2½" biscuit cutter (cookie cutter or glass cup also works) to cut out biscuits, then reshape the dough scraps and cut again. Repeat as needed to cut all dough. Shape the last bit of dough into a circle with your hands.
- Melt ½ stick of butter and pour into an 8×11 baking dish (9×9 also works). Place the biscuits in the dish, then flip them over coating both sides with the butter.
- Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown.
Notes
These flakey biscuits whip up in just a few minutes with these simple ingredients you probably have on hand. Not all biscuit recipes contain an egg, but I like to use one to give the finished biscuit a little more structure. It’s super annoying when your biscuit crumbles while you’re spreading your jam!
I got this pastry blender at Goodwill and I love it! The handle is sturdy and doesn’t try to twist as I’m using it. I have no idea the brand of mine, because Goodwill, but this one from Amazon looks pretty similar. I prefer the style that has blades over the ones with wire. I feel like they cut through the butter more efficiently. If you don’t have a pastry blender, using a fork works well. When I was a kid we used a very specific fork with a plastic handle that had a turquoise design in it. I’m still not sure why we only ever had the one fork in the pattern?!
You don’t have to use soured milk in your dough, but it will add another layer of flavor that I really enjoy. If you have buttermilk you can use that as an alternative, but you’ll want to add about 1/4 tsp of baking soda in with the flour. One of the most important things with biscuits (and scones!) is that you don’t overwork the dough. Stir just enough to bring the dough together.
I don’t like having to scrape sticky bits of dough off the counter. I’m not good at cleaning. I don’t like it and I’d just about rather do anything else. Parchment is my best friend! I can fold up all the mess into the parchment when I’m done, wipe the flour off the counter with a paper towel and throw the whole mess away. This makes me strangely happy!
It’s important not to twist the cutter as you are cutting out the biscuits. It will seal the edge of the dough and they won’t rise as nicely. Press straight down to make your cut, then peel away the edges to reveal the biscuit. Use a small metal spatula to lift them from the parchment if needed.
This is the stuff right here. Butter! No skimping and no substitutes. This is where the flakey meets the flavor and it’s all from butter.
By pouring the melted butter into the pan, then setting the biscuits in and flipping them over you can easily coat both sides with the butter so you get a flakey yummy top and bottom. And no sticking!
Here they are — perfectly golden on top, soft and flakey in the middle. Sturdy enough to hold up to jam or gravy, delicious enough to eat straight from the pan.
If by some fluke there are extras, I like to put them in a gallon bag and store in the freezer to use for Thanksgiving dressing. It takes a while to have enough, because rarely is there an extra biscuit! I hope you enjoy these as much as we do!
I never knew to sour milk using lemon juice instead of buying a whole container of buttermilk from the store. I’ll be trying this recipe soon, for sure!
It works great! Just let it sit for a few minutes, then you are good to go!