Easy Homemade Biscuits

5 from 18 votes

These Easy Homemade Biscuits are buttery, soft, and have tons of flaky layers! Ideal for family dinners, holidays, and the perfect side dish!

Prep Time20

Cook Time15

Total Time30

Course: Appetizer, Bread, Breakfast, Side Dish

Cuisine: American

Servings: Biscuits

Calories: 385kcal

Author: Britney

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.
Place butter in freezer for 20 minutes. Leave buttermilk in the refrigerator until you're ready to use it.
Mix together the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl - all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and kosher salt.
Slice COLD butter and add it to the flour mixture. Pinch the butter and the flour together until pea sized morsels form. (Tip: You can also use a pastry cutter or a box grater to grate the butter prior to adding it to the flour.)
Pour in cold buttermilk and mix together with a wooden spoon until a shaggy crumbly dough forms. The dough may seem very crumbly, do not add more buttermilk!
Remove biscuit dough from the bowl and place it onto a lightly floured surface. Gently work the dough until the dough is no longer crumbly. Cut the dough into 4 pieces and place on top of each other. (If you see big chunks of butter, don't worry - this is good!)
Use your hands to press the pieces together and then use a rolling pin to flatten dough until it's 1 inch thick. Press a 2 ¾ inch round biscuit cutter into the dough and place biscuits onto a baking sheet about 1 inch apart. Fold any excess dough back together and repeat until all of the biscuit dough is used, about 8-9 biscuits.
Brush the tops of the biscuits with heavy cream.
Bake biscuits in the oven for 14-15 minutes, until the tops of the biscuits are golden brown and you can see the flaky layers. Brush with melted butter and serve.

Tips

Freeze the butter for at least 20 minutes prior to slicing it into the flour mixture. Also, leave the buttermilk in the refrigerator until you're ready to use it. The butter and buttermilk should be as cold as possible - this is key to getting that nice flaky fluffy texture! Do not use room temperature butter.
Use a wooden spoon to mix the dry and wet ingredients. This will help to keep the biscuit dough cold as your hands are warm and will lower the temperature of the butter. We want to keep the dough as cold as possible to ensure we get fluffy biscuits.
Do not overwork your dough. There's no need to knead the dough, just press it together until it's no longer crumbly, then stop. Overworking the dough will result in tough biscuits.
When cutting the biscuits, do not twist the biscuit cutter. Simply press down and then pull it straight up. When you twist the cutter, the layers collapse on each other and the biscuits won't cook evenly.
If you would like to use a food processor to incorporate the butter into the flour, you can absolutely do this. It does help save time. However, just be sure to pour to add the butter/flour mixture to a large bowl prior to adding the buttermilk. The dough becomes thick and could break the food processor once the milk is added.
Oven temp is also very important. Not all ovens are calibrated the same way so be sure to use an oven thermometer to ensure your oven's temperature is accurate.