I have been wanting to share this recipe for quite some time, but it seems like each time I decided to make it, time got away from me and I never made it around to taking photos. But, I made time Sunday morning, so I thought I would share it with you today. This is also a great recipe to help celebrate National School Breakfast Week!
I posted my Monday’s Mystery Recipe yesterday, where I shared an awesome Almond Poppy Seed Muffin from Diane Mott Davidson’s book, The Last Suppers. And today, I’m sharing the best biscuit recipe I’ve ever made. Seriously, this biscuit is flaky, moist, and quick to put together. It’s the perfect pairing to a big bowl of homemade stew or, my favorite, fresh out of the oven with a little butter and homemade marmalade.
I would also love to tell you that my experiments in the kitchen led to this marvelous concoction, but it actually comes from Better Homes and Gardens. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
- 3 cups all-purpose flour, (part white whole wheat also works well) A note on the flour. I use King Arthur Flour and because it has a higher protein content, it absorbs more liquid, causing it to need more milk. If you use another brand, I suggest lowering the measure of milk down to 1 cup.
- 1 Tbsp baking powder
- 1 Tbsp sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- ¾ tsp cream of tartar, (or 2½ tsp vinegar)
- ¾ cup unsalted butter
- 1¼ cups milk
- Preheat the oven to 450°. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, and cream of tartar.
- Cut the butter into tablespoon size pats and add to the flour mixture. Using a pastry blender, cut in the butter until the mixture resembles course crumbs.
- Make a well in the mixture and add the cup of milk.
- Use a rubber scraper to slowly combine the milk and flour mixture. Stir until the mixture forms a somewhat slightly sticky dough.
- Prepare a work surface and lightly dust with flour. (I prefer to knead the dough on a floured cutting board for easier cleanup.)
- Knead 7-8 times, being careful not to overwork the dough. You are not making a yeast bread, so stick with the 7-8 turns of the dough. This will add just a small amount of extra flour and keep the mixture from being quite so sticky. The less you work it, the more tender and moist your biscuits will be!
- Flour your hands and pat the dough out into a circle that's about ¾" - 1" thick.
- Using a floured biscuit cutter, cut out biscuits and place on an ungreased baking sheet, 1-2 inches apart. My cutter was a 3" cutter and I was able to get 9 full-sized biscuits. I've used a 2½" cutter and gotten 15 out of one batch of dough.
- Place biscuits in 450° oven for 12-15 minutes. Because these were a little larger, they took 14 minutes to bake.
- Remove from the oven and serve warm. These biscuits are absolutely wonderful with a warm pat of butter and some homemade marmalade. I used my strawberry-lemon marmalade and it was delicious! Enjoy!
My go-to recipe is almost exactly like this one. It always comes out perfectly. I use buttermilk instead of milk for a more moist, tender biscuit, and I use baking soda in place of cream of tartar, which is almost the same thing. Lastly, after cutting out the raw biscuit dough while on the baking sheet, I put them in the fridge and then preheat the oven so that the butter is super cold when I put them in the oven. YUM! I’m craving some biscuits now even though I made some just this past Sunday morning!
I love how high your biscuits are. They look amazing.
Mmmmmm, buttermilk sounds delicious! I’ll have to try that sometime. Thanks!!!
Oooh I love finding new biscuit recipes to try! So far my favorite discover has been some super easy drop biscuits that are flaky with no butter, just some oil!
Have to try yours soon and try the buttermilk Memoria suggested too 🙂
*discovery!
I just bought a pastry blender a few days ago and so this was my first attempt at homemade biscuits. They came out wonderfully! Thanks so much for the recipe 🙂
You are welcome! It’s been a favorite of mine and the hubby for a long time!
Thanks so much for the recipe! I’m going to have to try it, it looks like the perfect biscuit!
Hi there! I’m excited to try your biscuits this week! Do you think I could make them the night before and keep them in the refrigerator until I’m ready to bake them?
I think you could try it. I can’t guarantee it will work because I haven’t tried it that way before, but I say give it a shot. I can tell you that these are just as good the next day, either warmed in the oven or the toaster. 🙂 And they keep well for several days. Good luck! I’m anxious to hear how they turn out!
Your recipe was my first attempt at making biscuits from scratch. I wrote about it
here. While they didn’t turn out as fluffy as I would have liked, I think that was due to user error. Thank you so much for posting the recipe.
I used your recipe for my first try at biscuits. I don’t know why it took me so long to try. They were wonderful! Husband and the kids enjoyed them thoroughly. We won’t be buying them anymore.
I LOVE hearing that! Really, a lot of homemade goods don’t take a lot of time to prepare, but we think that they will! I used to be the same way, but the more you make from scratch at home, the quicker recipes come together and the easier they are! I just made a batch yesterday to go with our homemade beef and noodles! Yum!
I have been eating those same biscuits my entire 57 years, baking them for 45.