How To Make Classic Buttermilk Biscuits

Classic buttermilk biscuits are a staple in my household. Quick, easy, and light as a feather, they can be served for breakfast, lunch, tea, dinner and even dessert! The technique is simple (hint: freeze the butter and use a light touch) but the results are spectacular.

I’ve been making these buttermilk biscuits for over 20 years now. They’re so much a part of who I am that I can almost go all grandma-style and make them without measuring! On several occasions, I’ve multiplied the recipe x10 to serve to 60 people for breakfast. They’re based on a recipe from Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant but really, most buttermilk biscuit recipes are very similar. Let’s take a quick look at the various elements of buttermilk biscuits.

I use all-purpose flour for my biscuits, although lately I’ve liked the flavor and texture of substituting 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour for 1/2 cup of white. The butter is always unsalted — if you do use salted butter, be sure to eliminate the salt in the dry ingredients. If you want to make these biscuits and there’s no buttermilk on hand, don’t despair. I’ve had excellent results thinning plain yogurt with milk until it reaches buttermilk consistency.

I’ve been measuring my ingredients using a scale these days, so I’ve given that option here for the butter and flour.

One of the most important tricks to making fantastic biscuits is for the butter to be super cold. I always start this recipe by cutting up my butter and placing it in the freezer. Even just 5 minutes in the freezer will give it that extra chill.

I have found, though, that completely frozen butter is a little hard to work with, especially if you are mixing by hand. Those nuggets of butter just want to stay in hard lumps and won’t cut in without a lot more work. If your butter is completely frozen, you might try grating it on a cheese grater.

A very hot oven is also key to good biscuits. My oven tends to run hot, so I put the temperature at 425°F, but if your oven is cool, you can go up to 450°F.

The recipe below gives instructions for making the dough in a food processor, but don’t worry if you don’t have one. They can easily be made in a bowl the old-fashioned way (see recipe notes.) I use the processor because it’s the best way to blend the butter and buttermilk into the dry ingredients without overmixing. But I’ve also made this recipe dozens of times without the machine, so it’s not a requirement.

The one thing that’s even more important than temperature when making biscuits is to not overwork the dough. You do not want to create a cohesive dough in the food processor — it should look like rough gravel when you tip it out onto the floured counter. When you bring it together into a rectangle, use a light touch and go quickly, gently pressing and gathering the gravel into a mass. The movement is more like patting and less like kneading.

The recipe calls for cutting the dough into thirds and restacking it, pressing gently to bring everything together. This is to help encourage flaky layers in the biscuits. Again, you don’t want to overwork the dough: just cut, stack, press gently and quickly a few times with the heel of your hand and repeat.

When I roll out my dough, I only use a few quick strokes. Maybe six in all. Sometimes it is even possible to forgo the rolling and just pat the dough into a rectangle.

I like to make square biscuits because it means that I’m handling the dough less and there are no scraps leftover. Of course you can make round biscuits but do not re-roll the scraps more than once or you will have tough biscuits.