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buttermilk biscuits served

Buttermilk Biscuits

5 from 1 vote
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Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Servings: 8 Biscuits
Course: Side Dish
Cuisine: American, French
Ingredients Method Notes

Ingredients
  

  • 2 cups  all-purpose flour
  • 1 tablespoon  baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon  baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon  fine sea salt
  • 1 tablespoon  white sugar
  • 6 tablespoons  unsalted butter cold and cut into small cubes
  • 3/4 cup  cold buttermilk
  • 1 tablespoon  melted butter

Method
 

  1. Whisk your flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar in a large bowl. You want to make sure the leavening agents (the powder and soda) are evenly distributed. 
  2. Add your cold butter cubes to the flour. Use a pastry cutter or two forks to press the butter into the flour. You are looking for the mixture to look like coarse crumbs. Some pieces should be the size of peas, while others might look like grains of sand.
  3. Make a small hole, or a “well,” in the center of your flour mixture. Pour in the cold buttermilk all at once. Use a sturdy spoon or a spatula to gently fold the flour into the milk. Stop as soon as the flour is mostly wet and a shaggy dough starts to form. It should not look smooth.
  4. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface. Gently pat it into a rough square. To get those “top-notch” flakes, you are going to fold the dough like a piece of paper. Fold it in half, pat it down, and rotate it. Repeat this four or five times.
  5. Pat the dough down until it is about one inch thick. Use a round biscuit cutter to press straight down. Do not twist the cutter. If you twist it, you “seal” the edges of the dough, and the biscuit will not be able to rise upward. It will just puff in the middle and stay short.
  6. Place the biscuits on a baking sheet so they are just barely touching each other. Slide them into a preheated 425°F oven. Bake for about 12 to 15 minutes. As soon as they come out, brush the tops with the melted butter for that classic shine.

Notes

One big mistake is over-mixing the dough once the milk is added. The more you stir, the more gluten you develop. Gluten is great for chewy bread, but it makes biscuits tough and rubbery. Stir just until the dough holds together, then stop.
Another issue is a cold oven. If your oven is not truly at 425°F when the biscuits go in, the butter will melt slowly and leak out onto the pan instead of creating steam.
Use an oven thermometer if you have one to make sure your stove is lying to you. A hot oven is the key to that initial “spring” that gives the biscuit its height.