By Erin Jeanne McDowell
- Total Time
- 45 minutes, plus chilling
- Rating
- 4(1,208)
- Notes
- Read community notes
Here’s a recipe for when you want towering, fluffy biscuits, but don’t want a large batch. You can use pretty much any ovenproof dish — a baking sheet, a square or round cake pan, or even a skillet — but be sure to butter the pan beforehand. If you like things a little less seasoned, reduce the salt to ½ teaspoon, and if you use salted butter in the dough, reduce the salt to ¼ teaspoon. Fun tip: Bake these beauties in the toaster oven by following the same temperature and timing guidance as you would when baking in a standard oven. Serve them warm.
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Ingredients
Yield:4 biscuits
- 2cups/255 grams all-purpose flour
- 1tablespoon baking powder
- 1teaspoon kosher salt
- 6tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch cubes, plus room temperature butter for greasing the pan
- ¾cup/180 milliliters cold buttermilk, plus more as needed
- 1large egg
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (4 servings)
423 calories; 20 grams fat; 12 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 6 grams monounsaturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 52 grams carbohydrates; 2 grams dietary fiber; 3 grams sugars; 10 grams protein; 363 milligrams sodium
Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
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Preparation
Step
1
In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder and salt to combine. Add the cold cubed butter, and toss until each cube is well coated with flour. Using your hands or a pastry cutter, cut the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles a coarse meal.
Step
2
Make a well in the center of the bowl, and pour in the buttermilk. Use your hands or a silicone spatula to mix the ingredients together until they form a hom*ogenous dough. (It will look quite shaggy.) If the dough is not coming together, add more buttermilk by tablespoons.
Step
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Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Toward the end of chilling, heat the oven to 400 degrees.
Step
4
Butter a 9-inch square baking pan, a 9-inch round cake pan, an oven-safe skillet or a baking sheet.
Step
5
On a lightly floured surface and using floured hands, pat the dough into a rectangle ½-inch thick. Fold the dough in quarters. Using floured hands, pat the dough out again to a square about 1¼-inch thick.
Step
6
Cut the square of biscuit dough into four even pieces. Transfer the biscuits to the prepared pan in a cluster, with about ½ inch of space between each biscuit.
Step
7
In a small bowl, whisk the egg with 1 tablespoon water. Brush the egg wash over the surface of the biscuits, and bake until deeply golden brown on top, 25 to 30 minutes. Cool at least 10 minutes before carefully separating and serving.
Ratings
4
out of 5
1,208
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Cooking Notes
Margaret
I'm sure these biscuits are good, but this is not a "small batch" recipe, at least not compared with my old standby biscuit recipe ("Rolled Biscuits," Joy of Cooking, 1975 edition, p. 632), which calls for 1 3/4 cups of flour. When I want a small batch of these, I halve the recipe.
Belle
Tasty and expeditious! Makes just four biscuits of a generous size, not "huge" in my book, not mingy. The dough came together easily with quantities given. When patted out the second time and before cutting, the dough was a generous 5" square. Altogether a lovely bake for a Saturday morning when there is snow on the ground. Would definitely bake these again.
Dan Findlay
Biscuits are easy to scale up or down. The proportions, by weight, are 3 parts flour, two parts liquid (dribble a little more if needed), one part fat. 1 teaspoon baking powder per cup (120 grams) of flour and salt to equal 2% of the flour weight, less if your butter and/or buttermilk have been salted. Work the fat into the flour well, but use a light hand with the dough once the liquid is added
Belle
6 Tablespoons = 3 ounces = 85 grams
PizzaQueen
Save the egg for frying! Coat biscuits with leftover buttermilk before baking
Hillaryn
Cut into 6 instead of 4. Baked off 2 in toaster oven. Froze 4. Frozen biscuits take about 12 min in my toaster oven at 400 degrees.
MK
Freezing unbaked biscuits lets you bake as many as you want. Flaky Buttermilk Biscuits (https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1015557-flaky-buttermilk-biscuits) are awesome. Freeze stick of butter and grate it on a large-hole grater, mixing it into the dry ingredients as you go -- easier than cutting butter into flour. Pat dough out, do a couple of book folds, then pat into a rectangle and cut into 12 pieces with a sharp knife. Scooch them apart, freeze and bag. Add 2-3 min to the baking time.
Gail
This most definitely is not small batch. The ingredients are nearly identical to Mark Bittman’s excellent recipe for TEN biscuits. I’m sure they are delicious but it’s really just 4 enormous biscuits. Don’t kid yourself.
GrandB
if using salted butter eliminate saltif using milk instead of crean increase butter2 Large Biscuits:INGREDIENTS:1/2 C less 3 tsp all-purpose flour2 TBS cake flour1/8 tsp salt1 tsp scant baking powder1/16 tsp soda1TBS 1tsp sweet butter1/3 C cream (milk OK as is buttermilk) DIRECTIONSPreheat oven 450°FMix dry ingredients in a bowl Work butter into flour add liquid, mix knead 3-4 times Make 1 large 3 in or 2-1&1/2 inch biscuit Bake on parchment paper 450° 15 -20 min
alison
I saw Erin’s post on Instagram, and on a whim, decided to make these biscuits to go with dinner. We didn’t have buttermilk so I mixed 1T lemon juice /1c whole milk. I ended up using just over 3/4c liquid. The biscuits turned out great - came together easily, baked beautifully in my cast iron skillet, and have wonderful flavor.
Bill
Looks tempting with frigid weather bearing down on usFor the past year or so, I've been sub'ing plain yogurt for butter in various recipes.Pancakes for instance....butter goes "on" the pancakes but not in themThe challenge now, small batch butter flavored yogurt biscuitsThe polar express is plopping on top of us for days, there's time to figure it out
Diane Bryant
This is the same as my recipe for 6-8 biscuits, just cutting out larger biscuits.
PeterL
These are excellent. I made them with two changes. First, onto a large plate cut the 84 grams of butter into small pieces or grate the butter (large holes of box grater). Freeze the butter for 30 minutes.Second, in step 5, "fold into quarters" will produce rounded sides making the biscuits lopsided. Instead, cut the rectangle's longer length in half (with a bench knife); lay one half on the other half. Turn the result 90 degrees, and do this again. Then do the final press.
Mary
Since I am not from USA I would love to know the weight of 6 tablespoons of butter. I'm just not used to not having metric figures.
Heather
I made these biscuits with almond milk in place of the buttermilk (didn't feel like running to the store for 1 ingredient) and think they turned out nice. Satisfied my Sunday morning biscuit craving, without having a ton of left overs. I think they are big biscuits, and I actually might cut the recipe in half next time.
NHchickens
This is it, folks. After years of searching, The biscuit recipe. I like smaller biscuits, so this made about a dozen 2 inch biscuits for me.
Imout
Unlike me, I followed the recipe exactly. The reward was very hearty delicious biscuits. Used salted butter and intro notes recommend decreasing - which I did. Baked in a 10” cast iron pan. Next time - and there will be a next time - I’ll pat out dough a bit thinner and make 6 biscuits
Sara
Love these! Have made them lots, and prefer cutting into 6 biscuits instead of 4. Makes 4 big biscuits and 6 regular.
Nicholas
I made these exactly according to the recipe, and they were delicious. Perfectly sized, slightly salty, deep golden brown, and flaky, these are probably the best biscuits I have ever made.I did need a couple of extra tablespoons of buttermilk to wet the dry ingredients, but this will probably vary depending upon the flour and humidity.
Nora
Love these. Easy to cook up and turn into delicious breakfast sandwiches. When I don't have buttermilk on hand, using vinegar or lemon juice in milk to substitute works just fine in this recipe.
Austin
It would be nice, if only for consistency's sake, if they could put the weight for butter in the ingredients too.
Sharanya
Idk what I did wrong but these didn’t rise for me at all and I could taste the baking powder a bit. The quest for whole wheat biscuits continues
Robert D
Take PeterL's recommendations regarding folding and cutting. I made mine per the recipe's instructions and they came out lopsided.
April
Used my fresh ground soft white wheat flour. Made 4 large beautiful biscuits.
Theresa
These a very large biscuits. Next time I will cut them into six pieces.
Rio S
I’ve always been so intimidated by biscuits but these are easy and I almost always have everything in hand. Came out so fluffy and tall, these were perfect.
Babara Brenner
Much too large for 4 biscuits. Would definitely make at least 6 . They didn't turn out flaky at all, just really large and doughy.
Letitia
I found these to be much heavier than I expected. They use less butter and less buttermilk than other recipes that I like better. I used 3/4 tsp of salt which was clearly not enough. I found the biscuits to be more like scones and less like fluky biscuits. Though I will confess that I used 1/4 C of whole wheat flour; that may have contributed to the heaviness.
Amy
White Lily flour makes the best biscuit!
Claire
I usually make it and get 8 biscuits out of it - which would serve 4 I think, but there are only three of us, and it is a good amount.
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