Best Biscuits You’ll Ever Have!

Every good home cook should know how to make biscuits and have a recipe on hand. Biscuits are more versatile than we think. They’re not only good for biscuits and gravy. Biscuits can be used to make sandwiches, as a shortcake base, a topping for pot pies, bread puddings, or croutons. Alternatively, you can slather them with butter and honey, then call it good. You can use biscuits in monkey bread, use them as a pizza base, or top them with creamed chipped beef – the possibilities are endless!

Another great thing about biscuits is that they don’t take as long to make as bread does. Even with my bread machine, which takes about 3 and a half hours to make one loaf, biscuits are quick. This recipe takes me less than half an hour to make. If you’re busy like I am, then this is a win! No dyes, no preservatives, no artificial anything! You make this in your home using basic, low-cost ingredients that you most likely already have in your home. Not only that, you don’t have to have a high skill level in cooking to make biscuits and still have fluffy, better-than-store-bought (or canned!) biscuits.

I’ve tried dozens of biscuit recipes over the years-some were hockey pucks, some spread into sad little pancakes, and a few were pretty good. But this one? This is the one I always come back to. Tall, fluffy layers, buttery edges, soft in the middle, and they actually taste like homemade love.

The Secret to Perfect Biscuits Every Time

A few simple tricks make all the difference:

• Keep everything cold (butter, milk, even the bowl if you want to be extra).
• Don’t overwork the dough-handle it like it’s your grumpy cat that hates being touched.
• Fold the dough a few times to create those beautiful layers.
• Bake them close together so they help each other rise tall.

Ready for the recipe that changed my biscuit life?

My Go-To Fluffy Biscuits

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 Tbsp baking powder
• 1 tsp sugar (I use cane sugar)
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, cold (or 1 stick of butter)
• 1 cup half and half (or you can use 1/2 cup milk and 1/2 cup of heavy cream)
• 1/2 Tbsp butter, melted to brush the baked biscuits

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 425°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. Dice the butter into cubes and place it in the refrigerator to keep it cold.
3. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt.
4. Add diced butter and cut into the flour with a pastry blender until the largest butter pieces are pea-sized. (If you don’t have a pastry blender, you can also use a fork.)
5. Add 1 cup of Half and Half and stir until the mixture comes together and is moist. Do not overmix! If you don’t have half and half on hand, you can use milk with heavy cream. Some people even like to use buttermilk. Most of the time, I would use the milk and heavy cream.
6. Sprinkle some flour onto the surface and turn the dough out onto the surface.
7. Pat the dough into a rectangle. Fold in half and pat into another rectangle. Fold one more time and pat into a rectangle with about 3/4″ thickness.
8. You can use a 2 1/2″ round biscuit cutter to cut out 8 biscuits. I have also used a tall glass to cut out biscuits. Either way, it helps to dip the rim in flour before cutting biscuits. Pull together scraps and form them into a rectangle to cut more biscuits.
9. Place biscuits on the parchment-lined baking sheet 1 inch apart and bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until the tops are golden brown and baked through.
10. Once the biscuits are out of the oven, brush the tops with melted butter. Transfer the biscuits to a wire rack to cool.

A Few Final Tips from Someone Who’s Made Approximately 10,000 Biscuits

Brush the tops with melted butter right when they come out of the oven. Trust me.

They’re best eaten the same day (as if they’ll last longer than an hour anyway).

Freeze the unbaked cut biscuits on a tray, then toss them in a bag. Bake straight from frozen-just add a couple extra minutes.

You can also place the unbaked biscuits in the refrigerator overnight to bake in the morning. Make sure to cover them.

There you have it – the best biscuits you’ll ever pull out of your own oven. Once you master these, you’ll never look at one of the exploding cans the same way again.

Now go forth and bake some biscuit magic! Your family (and your taste buds) will thank you!

Happy baking!

Siska DeYoung