How To Make Easy Buttermilk Biscuits

An ode to a time-honored Southern tradition and a complete guide on how to make easy buttermilk biscuits at home and from scratch; these biscuits are extra delicious, super tender, and have a buttery crumb!

What comes to your mind when you think about biscuits?

For me, I think about how biscuits were of cultural significance when it came to cooking in the South. Biscuits were, and still are, a staple in Southern cooking. The ingredients are few and the labor is typically non-extensive. If you pick up almost any cookbook from a Black author, you will most surely find a recipe for buttermilk biscuits. One thing I love about biscuit making is no matter the ways in which one makes their biscuits, the foundation is often the same: flour, a type of fat, buttermilk, and tons of love.

I’ve been making buttermilk biscuits for a while now and have developed a recipe that I personally love. Before I ever made homemade biscuits I used to be very intimidated by them. There was something about the making of dough and rolling out the dough that made me think buttermilk biscuits were challenging. In addition, it didn’t help that I always seemed to have had an image of a pleasantly plump older Black woman (that’s not me lol) with loads of biscuit making experience in my head either, ha!

I’m here to tell you that making homemade buttermilk biscuits is easy, fun, and so dang good. With just a little extra care and attention, you will be making biscuits left and right. Within this post, I made sure to include some step-by-step process shots (that Mom was kind enough to assist me with ♥️) to help you in being the biscuit-making boss that I already know you are. Hope you enjoy this one, now let’s get started!

The Anatomy Of Buttermilk Biscuits

• Flour: There are usually two types of flour that most people use when making biscuits. Most notably, there is traditional all-purpose flour and self-rising flour. Regular all-purpose flour is a basic type of flour with no added agents in it which causes the need for either baking soda/baking powder to be added to the recipe so the biscuits can rise beautifully, amen. Self-rising flour already has salt and a leavening agent added to it as opposed to all-purpose flour. Thus, by using self-rising flour, a leavening agent is typically not needed. However, I find that adding extra baking powder helps the overall texture.
• >>>> My absolute favorite type of flour is by White Lily. This particular brand is considered a Southern staple in flour and usually found in Southern-residing states. If you live outside of the South, you can also find this brand online. White Lily is milled from soft winter wheat and contains fewer grams of protein which subsequently reduces the amount of gluten in your biscuits. And this particular brand of flour may not be easily accessible to you, so, feel free to use regular self-rising flour in its place.
• Fat: It varies on the type of fat you could use for buttermilk biscuits. For example, there is shortening, lard, coconut oil, and much more but here at Butter Be Ready, we’ll use an all butter base because mo’ butta, mo’ butta, baby! Seriously speaking though, using all butter truly does yield a phenomenally tasty biscuit.
• Buttermilk: Obvi we’re making buttermilk biscuits so not much to explain here. However, buttermilk tends to give off some confusing vibes because contrary to its name, buttermilk does not contain any butter nor is it high in fat, like one would think due to its texture in comparison to regular milk.

Important Notes About Making Biscuits

1. It is important to make sure that the butter and buttermilk are completely cold. The temperature of your hands can cause the butter to melt and we want nice flecks of butter throughout the dough.
2. The butter should be grated using a box grater (or food processor if you have one). This process ensures that the butter is finely grated and can be easily mixed into the flour. You can use a pastry cutter to cut the butter into the flour but I prefer to use my hands because I like to feel the texture as I go.
3. To make sure that you don’t handle the dough too much with your hands, using a spatula helps to combine the ingredients. Overworking the dough too much will make the biscuits tough and heavy. A good rule of thumb to avoid this is to stop working the dough once you see everything is combined.
4. Placing the biscuits into the freezer for a few minutes is a great way to make sure that the butter gets super cold again before placing into the hot oven. When the cold butter enters the hot oven, it immediately melts and creates steam which helps the overall flakiness of the biscuits.

How To Make Buttermilk Biscuits

• When rolling out the dough, be sure to lightly flour your work area surface. Similarly, be careful not to use too much extra flour.
• Folding the dough, like you would a blanket, helps with making sure those buttermilk biscuits have nice layers and depth throughout. You want to fold the dough and roll it out at least 3 times.
• Start in the center and then roll backwards when rolling out the dough. Repeat in the center and then roll forward.
• Dip your biscuit cutter into some flour before cutting the biscuits out.
• A note on cutting out your biscuits, don’t twist your biscuit cutter– instead just punch straight down and out. Twisting the cutter pinches the edges of the biscuit and will cause an issue for the biscuits to rise.

Other Recipes You Might Enjoy

• Southern Collard Greens Recipe
• Buttermilk Fried Chicken Sandwiches With Slaw
• The Best Overnight Cinnamon Rolls
• Homemade Buttermilk Waffles
• Sweet Potato Cinnamon Rolls
• Blueberry Streusel Muffins
• Smoked Gouda Mac and Cheese
• Challah Bread Pudding With Bourbon Sauce

Homemade buttermilk biscuits can be a little overwhelming and intimidating, I get it. Though, it’s important to not overthink the process and just go with the flow of it all. With repetition and great ingredients, buttermilk biscuits can be a breeze, I promise.

Lastly, there is no shortage of toppings than can accompany buttermilk biscuits. Some of my favorites include, salted butter, cane syrup, strawberry jelly, honey, and blueberry jam. 

REMEMBER TO LEAVE A ⭐️STAR RATING⭐️AND TAG ME ON THE ‘GRAM IF YOU MAKE ANY OF MY RECIPES! I ALWAYS LOVE TO SEE IT WHEN YOU DO!

Until Next Time, Love and Butter,

Q.

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