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Preppy Kitchen

Flaky Homemade Biscuits

Tall, craggy biscuits with buttery layers that pull apart in flaky sheets and a tender center. A cold-butter dough plus a fold-and-stack technique builds all that height and structure.

⏱ 20 minAbout 12 biscuitsAmericanbiscuitsbakingbreadsouthernbutter

Ingredients

For the biscuits

  • 4 cupsall-purpose flour · 480 g, plus more for dusting
  • 2 tbspgranulated sugar
  • 1 tbspbaking powder
  • 2 1/2 tspsalt · kosher or sea salt; adjust for the coarseness and brand of your salt
  • 1 cupunsalted butter · 226 g, very cold and cubed; European-style butter works well
  • 1 1/3 cupscold milk · 320 ml, preferably whole
  • —melted butter · for brushing the tops out of the oven

For the honey butter

  • 2 tsphoney
  • —room temperature butter · about twice as much as the honey; salted or cultured butter, or unsalted plus a healthy pinch of salt
  • —vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste · optional, a drop or two

Steps

  1. 1

    Preheat the oven to 425°F and line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment.

  2. 2

    In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.

  3. 3

    Cut the cold butter into small cubes and add it to the flour mixture. Using clean hands or a pastry blender, work the butter in until the pieces range in size from small lentils up to almonds.

  4. 4

    Drizzle in the cold milk while folding with a spatula, adding milk to any dry pockets of flour, until you have a messy, shaggy dough.

  5. 5

    Lightly flour the counter and your hands, then turn out the dough and pat it into a roughly 1-inch thick square or rectangle.

  6. 6

    Fold the dough in half, cut it in half, and stack the halves. Pat back into a 1-inch rectangle and repeat the fold, cut, and stack three more times for four rounds total, flouring as needed.

  7. 7

    Pat or roll the finished dough to a thickness of 3/4 to 1 inch.

  8. 8

    Flour a 2 1/2- or 3-inch round cutter and press straight down without twisting to cut the biscuits, re-flouring the cutter before and after each cut. Transfer to the prepared baking sheet.

  9. 9

    Gather the scraps, pat them back together, and cut out the remaining biscuits; you should get about 12 total.

  10. 10

    Freeze the cut biscuits for 20 minutes so the butter is very cold and set before baking.

  11. 11

    Bake at 425°F for about 20 minutes, until puffed and golden.

  12. 12

    While the biscuits bake, make the honey butter: mix the honey into about twice as much room temperature butter, adding a pinch of salt if using unsalted butter and a drop of vanilla if you like.

  13. 13

    Brush the hot biscuits with melted butter, then break them apart and serve warm with honey butter.

Creator's notes

Everything should be cold — this is more like pastry than a cake batter. A range of butter piece sizes (lentils to almonds) is what steams the layers apart in the hot oven, so don't skip the 20-minute freeze. Biscuits keep at room temperature in a sealed container for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 3 months; rewarm in the oven or toaster oven. The dough takes well to add-ins like fresh or dried herbs, firm flavorful cheese, scallions, or caramelized garlic. If the folding sounds like too much work, look up drop biscuits instead.

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