Biscuits are one of the primary breads you can make at home. A plain biscuit comprises flour, butter, milk, baking powder, and salt.

As easy as it may sound, biscuit recipes are a tough job if not researched well. We can easily make that perfect round-shaped homemade biscuit with this biscuit recipe.

First, perfect homemade biscuits should be light, flaky, and have an outer crust with a sound bite. To accomplish these objectives, you’ll need to use the right approach.

Once you know how to make homemade biscuits it will be both simple and painless.

Before diving into learning the procedure for preparation, do you know very well what these homemade biscuits are? Let me tell you.

1. Where Do Biscuits Come From?

The name “biscuit” is derived from a Latin word whose meaning was “baked twice” or “twice-cooked.” Historically, homemade biscuits were first heated and then dried in a low oven, in a two-fold cooking process. Hence, it got its name.

Biscuits are a bread known and loved worldwide, and while we usually make them with flour, lard, leavening, and liquid, homemade biscuits come in many varieties, various shapes, and sizes, and can be steamed, baked, or fried.

1.1. Historically

Initially, people made small round cakes or quick bread out of wheat flour or whatever ground flour they had at their disposal. These small cakes were either fried or baked. As time passed, lightning agents became accessible.

These were incorporated into biscuit dough, which made them softer and bigger. The biscuit-making process developed and became accepted through the centuries, and the biscuit recipe was formalized.

Now, both unleavened and leavened homemade biscuits are prepared in this modern time. Countries where homemade biscuits are prepared and mainly sold influenced preferences. Still, in recent years, a greater selection of people is discovering even more homemade biscuits, as they find these in local markets or specialty shops.

Without further ado, let me start with the go-to biscuit recipe and the ingredients required to make biscuits.

1.2. Ingredients

Here are the ingredients.

• 2 cups all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 tablespoon sugar (flour baking powder sugar); better if powder sugar and salt.
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 1 egg
• 2/3 cup 2% milk (buttermilk works too)
• Unsalted butter, salted butter, melted butter.
• baking powder/ baking soda
• baking sheet
• Biscuit cutter

The additional ingredients depend upon the type of biscuit you are making. Now get ready to make fluffy homemade biscuits with this easy biscuit recipe.

1.3.1. Mix the Dry Ingredients

Starting homemade biscuits is simple. Just whisk your flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar powder simultaneously in a large mixing bowl.

To begin with, we make homemade biscuits from flour mixture, whole wheat flour.  So first, you need to figure out what kind of flour you will be using.

Various flour can be used, like whole wheat flour or cake flour. Cake flour will give you a light biscuit, but the outer crust won’t have as much bite to it.

While all-purpose flour will provide more bite, it’ll be a drier, hardly airy biscuit.

1.3.2. The Solution

So, what is the solution here? Well, use half of both. This mix will give you a biscuit with an airy interior and a pleasant bite on the surface.

Also, sifting the flour and other dry ingredients will give you a softer, airier biscuit dough. You don’t even need a flour colander to do this. But a wire mesh strainer will work just fine. But if it is available, it won’t harm to use it.

Once you add the liquid, whether it’s milk, cold milk, or buttermilk, if you are thinking of making homemade buttermilk biscuits or whatever, it’s essential to learn that the more you mix the biscuit dough, the more you exercise the fat in the flour, which makes the final product tougher.

Thus, you want to mix the biscuit dough until the wet and dry ingredients are combined.

1.3.3. Use of Fat

This biscuit recipe uses shortening as the fat; nevertheless, some homemade biscuits use butter. The method for both is similar.

Be sure to use freezing shortening here. Cut the cold fat into the dry elements using a pastry blender until the shortening is pea-sized. Frozen butter equals flaky layers, and flaky layers mean better homemade biscuits.

Now let’s talk about the fat in biscuits. A flaky layer is the fat, specifically how the fat is integrated into the flour.

In terms of flakiness, the best fat for making homemade biscuits is lard and vegetable shortening. In terms of essence, however, butter is unquestionably the best.

Biscuits made with butter or lard won’t keep as long as ones made with shortening, but this shouldn’t be an issue as the biscuits you make using this approach will be delightful; they’re going to get picked quickly. Our initial choice is butter.

1.3.4. Frozen Buttery Biscuit Recipe

To ensure maximum flakiness, you want to use frozen butter. It’s not a bad idea to chill all the flour, the butter, the milk, and even the bowl you mix it all up in.

Frozen butter will produce globules of fat that remain separate from the flour, making a biscuit flaky. The fatter, the globules, the wackier, the biscuit.

So, how to best consolidate the fat into homemade biscuits?

The basic technique is cutting in the fat, in which we use a pair of knives or a unique tool called a pastry blender to cut cubes of fat into the flour, forming a lumpy, mealy consistency. Some bakers do this first by spreading lumps of fat into the flour.

The issue here is you have to be quick. If you’re not skilled, your hands will melt up the lumps of butter, and your biscuits won’t turn outright. Hence, a pastry blender works well, and a food processor works.

The comfortable and quickest method is to put the flour in a food processor, add the butter, and give it eight or ten quick pulses until the fat is absorbed.

The more you work on the biscuit dough, the more challenging it will get. To roll out the dough and not have it stuck to your rolling pin and whatever ground you’re rolling it on, you will have to soil everything with extra flour.

This extra flour dries out the dough and makes a stiffer biscuit.

You’ll get extra dough scraps if you roll out the dough and use pastry cutters to cut out around any shaped biscuits.

You don’t want to throw these scraps away, so you re-roll them, cut out more biscuits, and until you’ve used it all.

The only trouble is that the more times you re-roll the dough, the stiffer it will get. That very last biscuit you make is going to be very different indeed.

1.4. Add Wet Ingredients

Although we went ahead with the biscuit recipe, let’s stick with the stepwise biscuit recipe. In a large bowl, whisk together the egg and milk or buttermilk.

Then drain this mix into the dry ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon until combined. A few specks of dry flour won’t hurt anything, though.

Now, maybe you don’t mind this, and if that’s the case, you don’t have a dilemma. But if you want the lightest, flakiest biscuit workable, the best approach to form the biscuits is by hand. Gently shape them into little balls with bare hands and transfer them to a baking sheet.

They’ll come out as the tenderest, flakiest biscuits you ever had. And it’s easier, too. No rolling, cutting, re-rolling, and so on. You roll the dough into balls until there’s no more dough left, and then you bake them. That’s all there is to it.

This is an alternative approach for biscuit dough.

Roll it out to about a half-inch width after wrapping or kneading the dough. Cut with a biscuit cutter square or round. Both works. If you don’t have a biscuit cutter on hand, you can flour the rim of a glass. You can also use a pastry cutter as a biscuit cutter.

Put the biscuits onto a lightly greased or parchment-lined baking sheet and bake at almost 400ºF for 10 to 12 minutes or until golden brown. A preheated oven can also bake the biscuits.

1.5. Lemon Biscuit Dough

This wonderful recipe can also be slightly twisted to make biscuits with lemon juice. This easy homemade biscuit recipe for making biscuits is perfect for afternoon tea with a pot of Earl Grey.

• First, preheat the oven to 190°c and line a large baking tray with baking paper.
• Paste together the unsalted butter and sugar until light.
• Break the egg, lemon zest, and lemon juice.
• Furor in the flour and baking powder and mix to form a dough. If the mixture is a little dry, add a tablespoon of water and mix until a soft dough forms.
• Top the bowl with clingfilm and chill the dough in the fridge for 15 minutes.
• Get tablespoons of the dough and roll it into balls. Crush down slightly with the back of a spoon. Place on the baking sheet.
• Bake in the oven for around 15 minutes. Draw out of the oven and crush down again with the back of a spoon. These biscuits do not spread and are thick, round, and bite-size.

Once cool, serve with additional servings.

Get frozen items from – Iceland Frozen foods

1.6. Points to Remember for Delicious Biscuits

• Draw back the butter or cheddar cheese into the flour in a large bowl using the tips of your fingers.
• Include the vanilla extract, egg yolks, and sugar, and mix it into a dough with your hands.
• Bring in the dough together with your hands.
• You can tip in the flour, add the chopped butter, and pulse until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs if you have a snack processor.
• Add the almond milk, sugar, vanilla, heavy cream, and egg yolks, and pulse again until it comes together in a dough. It is better to mix powdered sugar, salt, and vanilla with heavy cream.
• Roll the dough on a lightly floured surface, forming a sausage gravy shape. Wrap the sausage gravy dough in clingfilm and chill for at least 1 hour.
• Preheat the oven to 180C. Cut the dough into at least 5 mm thick slices, organize them on greased baking sheets, and place the biscuits so they have room to spread a little as they cook.
• Bake for almost 20 minutes or until the biscuits turn golden around the edges.
• Move to a wire rack to cool.
• Dust warmly with icing sugar.
• The biscuits will be kept fresh for one week and stored in an airtight container.

Now, if you want baking powder biscuit dough, here is a fantastic recipe for making biscuits.

1.7. Make Biscuits with Baking Powder

• Spray the smaller amount of whole milk evenly over the flour mixture. Mix rapidly and gently for about 15 seconds until you’ve made the dough united. If the dough seems dry and won’t come together, don’t keep working it.
• Instead, spray in enough whole milk — up to an additional 2 tablespoons to make it cohesive.
• Put the dough on a lightly floured work surface. Pat it into a rough rectangle thick. Fold it into thirds like a note and roll gently with a shattered rolling pin until the dough is thick again.
• Use a biscuit cutter to make nice-sized biscuits. Shape the dough into circles with a biscuit cutter for traditional round biscuits. Avoid leftover dough scraps; cut the dough into squares or diamonds with a counter knife or pointed knife.
• Put the biscuit’s bottom side up on your planned baking sheet, turning them over like this return’s biscuits with nice, smooth tops. Scrub the biscuits with whole milk to enhance the color golden brown.
• Biscuits are always good when they’re rewarmed before serving. Bake the biscuits for around 15 to 20 minutes until lightly golden brown. Separate them from the oven and serve a warm biscuit.
• Store biscuits well-wrapped, at room temperature for several days. Or frozen biscuits for more extended storage.

Here are some tips from the bakers to ensure a delicious recipe.

1.8. Tips from Bakers

• Using room-temperature grated butter and working it into the flour until the mixture is even, the breadcrumb-like texture will give buttery biscuits with an even, light crumb. Using cold butter and working it into the flour mixture until the mixture is haphazardly crumbly will cause higher-rising biscuits that are “layered” and flaky.
• If you prefer, replace buttermilk, light cream, or heavy cream with whole milk. Work on enough of whatever liquid you choose to bring the dough closely and readily without carrying it out too much.
• Placing cut biscuits closer together will help them rise longer and straighter. They’ll hold each other up as they push up in the oven. The sides will be smoother, as well. If you like crisp biscuits, space them apart on the baking sheet so the oven’s heat can get to their sides.
• If you’re going to use the biscuits for shortcakes or as dessert recipes, raise the sugar to 2 tablespoons, and whip up 1 teaspoon of vanilla into the dry dough mixture and the whole milk. Also, exclude a teaspoon of sugar in the tablespoon of milk you used to brush the tops. This will save them from browning accurately and convey mild sweetness to the crust.

1.9. Serve Well

Biscuits are like a blank canvas.

They’re almost unbelievably flexible, whether you’re speaking about the classic Southern buttermilk biscuit recipe or the various iterations that can be found on restaurant menus across the country.

Don’t be afraid to experiment with other ingredients. This recipe can help you make easy homemade biscuits

1.9.1. Additions

Whether you’re making a line hot bowl of chicken and dumplings or want to add some spicy sides to a plate of your homemade buttermilk biscuits, we assume you have the perfect motivation for some great side dishes.

From flavorful salads to smoky, succulent bacon and even rich cheese surfaces, whatever your people crave, can be an addition.

Thank you so much for reading this wonderful recipe. This great recipe for homemade biscuits will be delicious and for more great biscuit recipes, stay tuned.

Last Updated on April 15, 2024 by Namrata123