Homemade Flaky Biscuit Recipe Recipe - The Carefree Kitchen (2024)

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Homemade Flaky Biscuit Recipe or sometimes called Baking Powder Biscuits, are soft, fluffy, buttery, and so quick to make. With just a few easy steps, you’ll have delicious homemade biscuits to rival anything from the can or restaurant in no time at all.

Homemade Flaky Biscuit Recipe Recipe - The Carefree Kitchen (1)
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  • Homemade Flaky Biscuit Video Tutorial
  • Soft and Tender Baking Powder Biscuit
  • Butter vs. Shortening in Biscuits
  • Toppings For Baking Powder Biscuits
  • Ingredients in Baking Powder Biscuits
  • How to Make Easy Homemade Baking Powder Biscuits From Scratch
  • Tips for Making Baking Powder Biscuit Recipe
  • Baking Powder Biscuits Recipe

Homemade Flaky Biscuit Video Tutorial

Soft and Tender Baking Powder Biscuit

Once you make this Baking Powder Biscuits Recipe, you may never go back to the canned version again! At the very least, you will realize how simple it is to make your own. In fact, you probably have all of the ingredients that you need to make them right at this very minute.

We’ve provided you with step-by-step instructions, as well as tips and tricks, on how to make these biscuits perfectly soft, tender and delicious every single time. While they taste yummy on their own for breakfast, this is also a great flaky biscuits recipe to use for biscuits and gravy, as the topping for pot pie or even as a replacement for regular dinner rolls. And for a little flavor variation, be sure to try our Cheddar Biscuits too.

Homemade Flaky Biscuit Recipe Recipe - The Carefree Kitchen (2)

Butter vs. Shortening in Biscuits

We prefer butter over shortening because we’ve found it helps give them a little extra boost, thanks to the water content in butter. It also adds an undeniably delicious flavor that you just can't compete with.

This Fluffy Biscuit Recipe without shortening is made using room temperature butter instead of cold butter, which produces light, soft and tender biscuits, instead of flaky layers. If you prefer yours a little flakier, you can substitute cold butter. Just freeze your butter, then grate it using a box grater directly into the bowl with the dry ingredients.

Toppings For Baking Powder Biscuits

There are so many great ways to eat biscuits! Yes, a biscuit is delicious all on its own (especially with plenty of butter). But why not make it a party? Here are a few of our favorite toppings for Baking Powder Biscuits:

  • Honey, or The Most Amazing Honey Butter
  • Jams and jellies
  • Gravy of all kinds
  • Sausage Gravy- an amazing and easy homemade sausage gravy recipe.

You can also use this biscuit recipe as the topping for pot pie, cobbler or even dipped into your favorite soup (Olive Garden Chicken Gnocchi Soup comes to mind).

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Ingredients in Baking Powder Biscuits

  • Flour - we use all-purpose flour for these biscuits.
  • Baking Powder - any brand will work.
  • Salt - we like to use sea salt.
  • Butter - you can use either salted or unsalted butter, however you may need to reduce the salt in the recipe slightly if you go with salted.
  • Milk - we suggest using whole milk for this recipe, or even substituting heavy cream or buttermilk.
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How to Make Easy Homemade Baking Powder Biscuits From Scratch

  1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
  2. In a medium bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, and salt.
  3. Add room temperature butter and use a fork or pastry blender to mix. The mixture should resemble coarse crumbs.
  4. Make a well in the center of the butter and flour mixture, then add milk all at once and mix just until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl (dough will be sticky and a little lumpy). Let the dough rest for 2-3 minutes.
  5. On a floured surface, lightly knead dough by hand until smooth (about 30 seconds), then roll dough out with a rolling pin until the dough is even and about ¾" thick.
  6. Cut dough with a 3-4" round biscuit cutter or the bottom of a cup/jar (you can also cut into squares using a sharp knife) and place about ½” - 1” apart on a lightly greased baking dish.
  7. Bake in a preheated 425 degree oven for 12-14 minutes, or until lightly golden brown.
  8. Remove from the oven, then brush the tops with melted butter. Serve warm, and enjoy!
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Tips for Making Baking Powder Biscuit Recipe

  • When cutting your biscuit dough recipe, do not twist the cutter! Cutting straight up and down will help the biscuits rise straight up, rather than lopsided.
  • Another way to achieve flaky layers is by folding the dough in half and rolling it back down to about 1 ½” thick. Repeat up to 4 times before rolling out to the final thickness of ¾”.
  • It’s a good idea to keep the milk cold, particularly if you are using room temperature butter. It helps keep everything nice and cool even while you are working the biscuit dough with your warm hands.
  • For even more golden brown biscuits, you can brush them with a little milk just before baking.
  • If you have the time, it doesn’t hurt to chill your biscuit dough once it is rolled out and just before cutting.

Can I Freeze Baking Powder Biscuits?

Yes, the unbaked biscuit dough freezes very well. We recommend cutting your biscuits and freezing them flat on a baking sheet before storing them in a freezer bag or airtight container. They can be stored in the freezer for up to 3 months!
To bake, remove the frozen biscuit rounds from the freezer and transfer to a baking sheet. Let them thaw in the fridge overnight, or else bake from frozen and add a few extra minutes to the baking time.

What to Make with Homemade Flaky Biscuits:

  • Biscuits and Gravy:A classic Southern breakfast dish, top your warm biscuits with a rich and creamy sausage gravy.
  • Fried Chicken Biscuit Sandwich:Use your homemade biscuits as the bun for a crispy fried chicken sandwich, topped with pickles, lettuce, and your favorite sauce.
  • Strawberry Shortcake:Add and a little sugar to your dough and use the biscuits for an easy dessert. Cut your biscuits in half and layer with fresh strawberries and whipped cream for a delicious and easy dessert.
  • Buttermilk Biscuit Breakfast Sandwich:Fill your biscuits with scrambled eggs, bacon, and cheese for a hearty breakfast sandwich.
  • Biscuit-Topped Chicken Pot Pie:Use your biscuits as the crust for a comforting and delicious chicken pot pie.
  • Ham and Cheese Biscuits:Layer your biscuits with thinly sliced ham and your favorite cheese for a quick and easy lunch.
  • Biscuit-Topped Beef Stew:Use your biscuits as a topping for a hearty and comforting beef stew.
  • Spreads- Or just enjoy your homemade biscuits with Homemade Strawberry Jam, Honey Cinnamon Butter or Garlic Butter!

These are just a few ideas for what you can make with your homemade buttermilk biscuits. Get creative and experiment with different flavors and ingredients to create your own unique dishes.

Homemade Flaky Biscuit Recipe Recipe - The Carefree Kitchen (6)

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Baking Powder Biscuits Recipe

These Baking Powder Biscuits are soft, fluffy, buttery and so quick to make. With just a few easy steps, you’ll have delicious homemade biscuits to rival anything from the can in no time.

Course Bread, Breakfast

Cuisine American

Prep Time 20 minutes minutes

Cook Time 14 minutes minutes

Total Time 34 minutes minutes

Servings 8 people

Calories 210kcal

Author The Carefree Kitchen

Ingredients

  • 2 cups All-Purpose Flour
  • 1 ½ Tablespoons Baking Powder
  • ½ teaspoon Salt
  • cup Butter room tempreture
  • ¾ cup Milk
  • 1 Tablespoon Butter melted, to brush on after baking

Egg Wash

  • 1 large Egg
  • 1 Tablespoon Milk

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

  • In a medium bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, and salt.

  • Add room temperature butter and use a fork or pastry blender to mix. The mixture should resemble coarse crumbs.

  • Make a well in the center of the butter and flour mixture, then add milk all at once and mix just until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl (dough will be sticky and a little lumpy). Let the dough rest for 2-3 minutes.

  • On a floured surface, lightly knead dough by hand until smooth (about 30 seconds), then roll dough out with a rolling pin until the dough is even and about ¾" thick.

  • Cut dough with a 3-4" round biscuit cutter or the bottom of a cup/jar (you can also cut into squares using a sharp knife) and place 1-2" apart on a lightly greased baking dish.

  • Use your thumb and make a small indent on the top of the biscuit. (This will help them rise straigh on all sides)

  • Beat egg in a small bowl with the milk. Using a pastry brush, brush the tops of the biscuits.

  • Bake in a preheated 425 degree oven for 12-14 minutes, or until lightly golden brown.

  • Remove from the oven and brush with melted butter if desired. Serve warm, and enjoy!

Nutrition

Calories: 210kcal | Carbohydrates: 26g | Protein: 4g | Fat: 10g | Saturated Fat: 6g | Cholesterol: 26mg | Sodium: 238mg | Potassium: 291mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 1g | Vitamin A: 317IU | Calcium: 130mg | Iron: 2mg

Here are some more recipes that we love!

  • Cinnamon Twist Bread
  • Homemade Crescent Rolls
  • Easy Homemade Cornbread
  • Homemade Soft Pretzels
  • Homemade White Bread
  • More Bread Recipes
  • More Breakfast Recipes
  • Best Brunch Recipes
  • Blueberry Breakfast Cake
  • Banana Muffins

If you’ve tried this recipe, please rate it and leave a comment on this post. I love hearing feedback from you that helps me and other readers too! If you love Pinterest, feel free to leave a comment and photo there too. Also, if you like to share, use the hashtag #thecarefreekitchen on Instagram and tag me @thecarefreekitchen so I can find you and give your post some love. You can also find me on Facebook at The Carefree Kitchen. Thank you!!

Homemade Flaky Biscuit Recipe Recipe - The Carefree Kitchen (7)

These homemade flakey biscuit recipe, Baking Powder Biscuits are soft, fluffy, and made with real butter. Using only 5 simple ingredients, they are a cinch to make and quick to throw together.This homemade biscuit recipe is perfect for breakfast, alongside your favorite gravy, or made into a great sandwich.

This recipe for baking powder biscuits is a soft biscuit recipe and makes the most amazing flakey biscuits.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Joey

    The recipe called for 1.5 Tablespoons of baking soda, all they tasted like was straight baking soda. Was there a miss representation of baking soda, because they did not turn out good.

    Reply

  2. Julie

    Best Biscuit Recipe EVER! I rarely make biscuits, they just seem time consuming and difficult. Your recipe was so easy to follow. 10 minutes to make the dough, 14 to bake the biscuits. And they turned out FANTASTIC! Flakey, buttery perfection. No more biscuits-in-a-can for me. These are 100 times better than the premade ones. Excellent recipe.

    Reply

  3. Kim

    These were very good and soooo very easy!

    Reply

    • Donna Zulock

      I am a well seasoned cook who has been cooking for 60 years. The one thing I couldn't make were biscuits. This recipe came out so good, my husband loved them. I used cold butter and mixed the dry ingredients with the butter in a food processor. This recipe is a keeper.

      Reply

    • Lisa

      Very easy and came out perfect! So good! I made a double batch and froze half. Thank you for the recipe!

      Reply

  4. Linda Grundman

    Eating them as we speak soooooooo goooooood, thankyou.

    Reply

    • Jill Baird

      So glad you enjoyed them!!

      Reply

  5. Colleen

    We don't get refrigerator biscuit dough in South Africa. Would your biscuits recipe be able to be used in all the recipe ideas for eg inside casseroles and not just as a topping?

    Reply

    • Jill Baird

      you bet!

      Reply

  6. Virginia

    These were so easy to make and they froze and baked well from frozen. Defiantly a recipe to keep!!

    Reply

    • Jill Baird

      Thanks for letting me know! I'm so glad you love them too.

      Reply

      • Debbie Jolley

        These are the best biscuits. I make them and freeze them on a cookie sheet then put them in gallon bags. Great recipe!!

        Reply

Leave a Reply

Homemade Flaky Biscuit Recipe Recipe - The Carefree Kitchen (2024)

FAQs

What are the two most important things to do to ensure a flaky and tender biscuit? ›

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.

What is the best flour for flaky biscuits? ›

Flour: I use all-purpose flour, but soft white wheat flour like White Lilly, Martha White, and Bob's Red Mill Fine Pastry Flour is excellent for biscuits. Its lower protein content shuts down gluten formation, making them even more light, fluffy, and tender.

What is the secret to an excellent biscuit? ›

Just bring it all together and let the ingredients do the work." In order to help the biscuits rise, all the experts agree that the fat — whether butter, shortening or margarine — needs to be cold, and there should still be visible chunks of that fat in the dough. Don't overmix.

What is Joanna Gaines biscuit recipe? ›

Ingredients
  1. 4 cups self-rising flour, plus more for the work surface*
  2. 2 tablespoons baking powder.
  3. 1 teaspoon baking soda.
  4. 3 sticks salted butter (¾ pound), cold, cut into ½-inch pieces or grated.
  5. 2 large eggs, beaten, plus 1 large egg for brushing.
  6. 1½ cups buttermilk, or as needed, plus 1 tablespoon for brushing.
Feb 13, 2024

What flour is best for homemade biscuits? ›

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.

Which liquid makes the best biscuits? ›

Just as important as the fat is the liquid used to make your biscuits. Our Buttermilk Biscuit recipe offers the choice of using milk or buttermilk. Buttermilk is known for making biscuits tender and adding a zippy tang, so we used that for this test.

What kind of flour do Southerners use for biscuits? ›

White Lily brand flour, especially the self-rising flour, is the gold standard among Southern cooks who make biscuits on a regular basis. White lily, self rising. I use it for everything except those thing I make using either cake flour or yeast. If I'm using yeast I use King Arthur flours.

Does sifting flour make biscuits better? ›

The solution: Use half cake flour and half all-purpose flour. This combination will give you a biscuit with light and airy interior with a pleasant, satisfying bite on the outside. Also, sifting the flour and other dry ingredients will give you a smoother, airier dough.

Are biscuits better with all purpose or self-rising flour? ›

Generally, self-rising flour also has a lower protein content, so it's often used in recipes that benefit from being lighter and more tender, like biscuits.

What is the king of biscuit? ›

Pillai became known in India as the 'Biscuit King' or 'Biscuit Baron'. He took over Nabisco's other Asian subsidiaries. Pillai then established links with Boussois-Souchon-Neuvesel (BSN), the French food company, and by 1989 controlled six Asian companies worth over US$400 million.

Are biscuits better with butter or shortening? ›

Conclusion: Either butter or shortening is fine; there's no clear advantage of one over the other (except that butter is easier to incorporate into the dough by hand, especially if you grate it like cheese).

Why are Southern biscuits better? ›

As explained by Reader's Digest, these biscuits are traditionally made with flour ground from soft wheat, a variety of grain that grows readily in the American South due to its warm, humid climates. This type of wheat has about half as much gluten as hard wheat — the type of wheat used in bread flour.

How do you make Paula Deen's biscuits? ›

directions
  1. Preheat oven to 400ºF.
  2. Dissolve yeast in warm water; set aside.
  3. Mix dry ingredients together.
  4. Cut in shortening. ...
  5. Add yeast and buttermilk and mix well.
  6. Turn dough onto lightly floured surface and roll out to desired thickness.
  7. Cut with small biscuit cutter and place on greased baking sheet.

What are the ingredients in farmhouse biscuits? ›

With a love of old family recipes, the finest ingredients, traditional baking methods and above all a simple love of baking biscuits. INGREDIENTS: Flour (Wheat Flour, Calcium, Iron, Niacin, Thiamin), Vegetable Oils (Rapeseed, Sustainable Palm), Sugar, Salt, Flavourings, Raising Agent: Sodium Hydrogen Carbonate.

What 2 ingredients affect both flakiness and tenderness of a plain pastry? ›

Its combination of two fats – butter and shortening. Shortening gives the crust structure, keeping those pretty crimps in shape and preventing the crust from sagging. And butter adds its signature flavor. Both fats contribute to flakiness.

How do you achieve a tender and flaky dough crust? ›

Keep the dough ingredients cool

The key to standard pie crust is having pockets of fat surrounded by flour. But if that fat starts to melt and mixes with the flour, it can start to develop gluten, which can lead to a tough crust. To prevent this, keep everything as cold as possible.

How do you achieve a tender and flaky pastry dough crust? ›

The process of making a flaky pastry involves “cutting” one quarter of the total fat into the flour such as a pie dough till it forms what resembles coarse meal. Proper incorporation of the fat, in this step, provides flour lubrication and restricts or at least delays its quick absorption of added water.

What is the most important step in biscuit making? ›

Mixing. The multi-stage mixing method is preferred for its ability to produce consistent doughs which are not fully developed. Blending all dry ingredients to rub or cut the shortening into the flour until fat is fully distributed and pea-sized lumps are visible.

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