Recipe: Two-Ingredient Biscuits

Did you know that you can make homemade biscuits from scratch with only two ingredients? And no, they don't involve Bisquick.

We discovered this old recipe while searching for a very, very quick dinner bread. We had just about half an hour, and we had forgotten to start a loaf of No-Knead the night before. We were browsing through AllRecipes, and this recipe for two-ingredient biscuits came up very highly ranked. We were skeptical: how good could they possibly be?

Well, the reviews were almost uniformly positive: cooks loved them! They said that these biscuits were light, fluffy, and so, so easy.

What were the secret ingredients? Two staples of old-timey kitchens: self-rising flour, and cream.

Yep, just stir these together, pat out the dough, and you have biscuits ready in 15 minutes flat. We put them to the test, and we can vouch for their light and airy fluffiness; these are good little biscuits. They also aren't as heavy and rich as buttery biscuits (although we do love those too). Ultimately, there's no way they're beating our favorite biscuit, Shirley Corriher's touch-of-grace miracles, but these will more than do in a pinch. In fact, the only reason we had self-rising flour in the house was because we had made Corriher's biscuits a couple weeks before.

We did adapt this slightly - partly to make the recipe quicker, and partly to help the biscuits rise more. We also subsituted milk for cream; as much as we love cream, it's not necessary here.

These turned out to be a big hit at our dinner party; they're great with soup, too! Just don't make more than you need for one meal. The absence of fat in these biscuits means that they won't hold up well. Eat them hot and make more next time. After all, they're quick enough to whip up any time you want.

Two-Ingredient Biscuits
Adapted from Diane Hixon at AllRecipes

Makes 1 dozen biscuits

3 cups self-rising flour, such as White Lily
1.5 cups buttermilk or regular milk
1 tablespoon sugar, optional
4 tablespoons butter, melted, optional

Heat the oven to 450°F. Lightly grease a round cake pan.

Mix the flour with the milk, adding a tablespoon of sugar if you want to. Drop by large tablespoonfuls into the greased cake pan, packing each drop biscuit close together. Pour the melted butter over top, if using.

Bake for about 20 minutes, or tops lightly browned. Do not overbake; the bottoms will get crusty and hard.

Alternate method: Pat out the dough instead of dropping into pan. Dust with flour and cut out rounds with a biscuit cutter

Related: Touch-of-Grace Biscuits

Comments (12)

How is self rising flour that different from bisquick--why is one a great answer while the other is being rejected?

Self rising flour is flour leavening.

Bisquick is flour leavinging nasty processed hydrogenated transfat-filled shortening.

You can "make" self-rising flour by adding baking powder and a dash of salt to all-purpose flour. I do it about once a week when I make my fave biscuits (which only have four ingredients) from allrecipes.com (http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Cheddar-Biscuit-Cups/Detail.aspx). There's actually a note below the recipe about it:

"As a substitute for 1 cup of self-rising flour, place 1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a measuring cup. Add all-purpose flour to measure 1 cup."

They're seriously easy and fantastic; awesome with chili or any bean soup.

They make a trans-free version of bisquick now called heart-smart, the primary difference is canola oil instead of shortening so in my mind there just isn't a whole lot of evil associated with the product, but because it's a popular name brand it is easy to vilify. Personally I don't have that or self-rising flour around the house because its not something I use enough to justify---still I think there is more to this biscuit thing---surfing around on chowhound apparently white lily is one of the deified southern flours, made from a softer wheat---I imagine this would make quite a difference from bisquick.

these just don't look appealing. at all.

These are the biscuits my mom taught me to make, and they are so good that I've never felt the need to stray. We never used cream, but 2 c SR flour, 3/4 c milk (soy works too), 1/4 c oil. I use olive oil if I'm adding rosemary and oregano, otherwise canola or something sans taste. Cause if you make biscuits, you have to save some for dessert.

There are two bags of SR flour in my house for probably the first time in about 31 years of home-cooking for a houseful of kids. Just never wanted it around, but "accidentally" added some to my pantry. This recipe will be a great way to use it! (I'll add in some wheat germ and bran in place of a little of the flour.) The biscuits will go well with today's black bean soup post. I want to add smoked paprika to the soup--also "accidentally" added to my pantry by one of my kids, and now an appreciated and oft-used spice.

Oh, these are delicious!

We always use buttermilk - the result so much better than milk or cream.

Another tasty 2-3 ingredient biscuit is using the self-rising flour and beer as the liquid. It makes a light fluffy product!

3 c. self-rising flour
1 Tbsp sugar (opt)
1-can beer

Mix it lightly and let it sit to raise a bit and bake at 325. Make this one when you are having guests for a hearty soup or stew. Lots of biscuits to go around!

These biscuits really are delicious! When I was making them I accidentally used nonfat milk instead of regular... they still turned out great!

Sooo goood.

These look so good! I love your recommendations. I have been looking for some really good italian recipes. Do you know of any that you could recommend to me?

These type of biscuits spoil very fast i know from experience. Check out this: http://www.wix.com/tenkaiechi01/goodbreadstuffs?ref=nf For good biscuits that will last a while longer just as easy to make.