Soft, fluffy, homemade buttermilk biscuits are good for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Fill these biscuits with country ham or sausage for a great meal.
Prep Time15 minutesmins
Cook Time10 minutesmins
Total Time25 minutesmins
Servings: 10biscuits
Calories: 359kcal
Author: Lucy Brewer
Ingredients
If using self-rising flour:
4cupsWhite Lily self-rising flour
2sticks cold unsalted butter, diced into small chunks
1 ½ - 1 ¾cupsfull-fat buttermilk
If using all-purpose flour:
4cupsWhite Lily all-purpose flour
2tablespoonsbaking powder
2teaspoonssalt
2sticks cold unsalted butter, diced into small chunks
1 ½ - 1 ¾cupsfull-fat buttermilk
Instructions
Preheat oven to 500°. Place flour in a large bowl. If using all-purpose flour, whisk in the baking powder and salt.
Mix in diced butter using your hands or a pastry blender. Smooth some butter into flat flakes and leave some as chunky pebbles of butter.
Make a well in the middle of your flour and add the buttermilk, using a fork to incorporate all the flour from the sides of the well.
Stir until the flour is all incorporated and you have sticky dough. Then dip your hands in flour and sprinkle a little more flour on the dough until you can handle the dough without it sticking to your fingers. If the dough appears too dry and crumbly then you probably need to pour in a little more buttermilk.
Knead very gently by folding the dough into itself a few times. Once the dough is smooth and easy to handle, pick up a large handful of dough and roll slightly and place on pan, then flatten a bit until it’s about an inch high.
Bake 10-12 minutes until golden brown.
Notes
Tips for the Best Homemade Buttermilk Biscuits
Most important: do not overwork the dough. You want to barely activate the gluten. This is not bread-making and you do not need to knead the dough for very long.
Make sure your butter and buttermilk are COLD. Now, some folks will tell you that even using your hands to mix up the flour and butter will soften the butter too much, but I've made hundreds of biscuits over the years and that method works just fine for me. If it makes you feel better though, use a fork or a pastry cutter.
The oven should be hot when you put the buttermilk biscuits in there.
If your biscuits are too hard or dry, then you probably worked the flour too much or didn’t add enough milk. Practice and don’t give up. It takes a while to get the feel of just right dough.