Butter Biscuits

You only need six essential baking ingredients to make these buttery, flaky, melt-in-your-mouth with incredibly soft center biscuits from scratch. Such a delightful treat with irresistible melt-in-your-mouth goodness with every bite. Just the perfect snack or side that pretty much goes well with anything.

Makes 8-10 biscuits

Course Bread

Cuisine American

Prep Time 10

Cook Time 15

Resting Time 10

Total Time 35

Servings -5

Calories 160kcal

Author Imma

Ingredients

2½ cup (375g) all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon (1.44g) baking powder
2 tablespoons (25g) granulated sugar
1½ teaspoon (9g) salt
12 tablespoons (168g) unsalted butter, very cold, reserve ¼ cup for brushing
1 cup (8oz) buttermilk or whole milk

Instructions

Sift flour, baking powder, granulated sugar, and salt in a large mixing bowl.
Quickly grate frozen butter into the flour mixture – grating the butter evenly distributes the fat throughout the dough, making it light and fluffy. Alternatively, quickly cut butter into the flour with a pastry blender until it resembles coarse crumbs, about 5 minutes. The flour should be crumbly and have pea-size chunks. Put the bowl in the fridge if you're not going to make the biscuits right away. You don't want your butter to get soft.
Make a well in the center of the bowl, pour in the buttermilk or milk, and stir until it just comes together. DON'T OVER MIX. (You want the butter to stay in tiny chunks for flakiness.)
Let it rest in the fridge for about 10 minutes while you prepare your surface.
Sprinkle flour onto a board or clean surface. Remove the dough from the fridge and place it on the board; knead about 3-4 times- just enough so it comes together. You can still see flakes of butter in the dough. Repeat: do not overmix.
Gently, gently pat dough with hands or roll out dough about to about ½" thick.
Repeat the folding process about 6-8 times to ensure flakiness. Roll it out gently. When you're done folding, gently press the dough to about 1-inch thick, ready to be cut out.
Use a 2- or 3-inch round cookie cutter or the rim of a glass to cut the biscuit shapes. Push it straight down firmly, then pull back up. Gently loosen the dough from the cutter with your fingers and space them out equally on your prepared baking sheet.
Knead any leftover scraps of dough together and repeat until all dough is used up. The last biscuits may not be as pretty as the rest, but they will pass the taste test.
Lightly brush with buttermilk or cream.
Bake at 400°F/205℃ for 12-15 minutes or until lightly browned. While it is baking, melt the butter.
Remove and immediately brush with the melted butter and serve with honey if desired.

Notes

I strongly recommend freezing the butter and refrigerating the milk at least an hour before starting to ensure soft and fluffy biscuits.
It's crucial to chill the dough to keep the butter cold. Our biscuits won't be as flaky if the butter melts while kneading.
Do not overmix! We want to keep the butter flakes solid. Because the butter will create tiny air pockets in our biscuits once it melts during baking.
A pastry cutter or fork to mix the butter into the flour mixture will keep your hands from warming the butter.
Don't skip the folding technique. This technique creates beautiful flaky layers to our homemade biscuits.
Please keep in mind that the nutritional information is a rough estimate and can vary significantly based on the products used in the recipe.

Nutrition