These homemade biscuits are soft and buttery with dozens of flaky layers. This biscuit recipe requires just 7 ingredients and they’re ready in about 35 minutes.
I originally published this recipe in 2017 and have since added new photos, a video tutorial, and more helpful success tips.
One reader, Marcia, commented: “Finally, a biscuit recipe that worked for me. I especially appreciated the notes which, in fact, had me change some things I had been doing. The detail at all levels, both visual and written, is very helpful. ★★★★★“
Another reader, Maggie, commented: “One of my favorite biscuit recipes! They are so consistently flaky and delicious, every single time! ★★★★★“
It’s quite serendipitous that this “side dish” may taste even more remarkable than the main event. No, no… it WILL taste more remarkable. Just look at the big buttery layers! Nothing can compete.
What Are Biscuits?
The term “biscuits” has different meanings depending on where you live in the world. In the U.S., biscuits are similar to a dinner roll, but are denser and flakier because they aren’t (typically) made with yeast. Since there’s usually no yeast and the rising agent is either baking soda, baking powder, or both, biscuits are considered a quick bread, like banana bread and no-yeast bread. In other parts of the world, people may consider these American-style biscuits to be more similar to scones, and what they call “biscuits” are more like what we call cookies.
7 Key Ingredients in Homemade Biscuits
You need just 7 basic ingredients for my homemade biscuits recipe:
- All-Purpose Flour
- Baking Powder
- Baking Soda
- Salt
- Cold Butter
- Cold Buttermilk
- Honey
With so few ingredients, it’s important to reach for quality ingredients and avoid any substitutions.
Baking Powder AND Baking Soda
Until recently, this biscuits recipe called for just baking powder as the leavening agent. In recent years, I’ve found that the texture, color, and flavor excels when using a combination of both baking powder AND baking soda. If you’ve always made this recipe using 2 Tablespoons of baking powder, you can certainly continue to do so! However, by reducing the baking powder to 1 Tablespoon and adding 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda, the biscuits brown more, have a flakier texture, crispier edges, and you don’t risk a bitter chemical aftertaste.
Success Tips for the Best Homemade Biscuits
After perfecting this recipe over the past 8 years and developing other biscuit recipes, let me share what I’ve learned along the way. I’ve made plenty of mistakes so you don’t have to. These tried-and-true tricks will turn your flat, dry biscuits into the best biscuits ever. And that’s a guarantee.
- Cold Fat: For flaky layers, use cold butter. When little pieces of butter melt as the biscuits bake, they release steam and create little pockets of air—this makes the biscuits airy and flaky on the inside while remaining crisp on the outside. It’s the same thing that happens when making these ham & cheese scones.
- Buttermilk & Honey for Flavor: Buttermilk and a teeny drizzle of honey balance out the salt. Buttermilk creates the most tender biscuit! I have plenty more on this topic in my Baking With Buttermilk post (including a buttermilk substitute recipe).
- Don’t Over-Mix: Never overwork biscuit dough. Overworking and over-handling biscuit dough will result in tough, hard, and flat biscuits. Mix the ingredients together *just* until combined. Dough will be crumbly; that’s normal.
- Flatten & Fold Method: The most important step of all is folding the dough together. Turn the scrappy dough out onto a work surface and flatten it with your hands. Fold, flatten, turn, and repeat.
- Don’t Twist the Biscuit Cutter: When cutting the dough with a biscuit cutter, do not twist the cutter. Press the cutter down into the dough firmly. Twisting it will seal off the biscuit edges, preventing the biscuits from rising.
- Bake Close Together: Biscuits rise up nice and tall when they are touching, pressed snuggly against one another in the oven.
How to Make Your Homemade Biscuits
Whisk the dry ingredients together, then add the cubed butter. Cut the butter into the dry ingredients with a pastry cutter, like when making pie crust or this savory quick bread, or pulse in a food processor. Cut/blend in the butter until you have coarse crumbles, like this:
Add the buttermilk and honey. Mix everything together until you have a shaggy dough, like this:
Pour it out onto a work surface and bring the dough together with your hands. It will be dry and shaggy with some moist spots. That’s all perfectly normal:
Fold & Flatten the Dough
Flattening and folding biscuit dough creates multiple flaky layers, just as it does when we make homemade croissants, rough puff pastry, homemade cruffins, mille-feuille, and croissant bread. This step will take you no more than 2 minutes and you’ll be rewarded with the flakiest biscuits in the world. First, shape dough into a rectangle, about 3/4-inch thick:
Then fold one side into the center:
Then the other side:
Turn the folded dough 90 degrees so it’s now horizontal, gently flatten, and repeat that folding process 2 more times.
After you’ve folded and flattened 3 times, flatten into a 3/4-inch rectangle once again, then use a biscuit cutter to shape into rounds. If you don’t have a biscuit cutter, you can cut into 8 to 10 squares.
Arrange close together in a cast iron skillet (no need to preheat it), or on a lined baking sheet. Again, make sure the biscuits are touching so they will rise nice and tall.
Before baking, brush the biscuits with buttermilk to help the tops brown evenly.
Honey Butter Topping
The honey butter topping is optional, but will set your biscuits apart from the rest. When the biscuits come out of the oven, brush with melted butter + honey. You use both ingredients in the biscuit dough, keeping the count at 7 ingredients total.
Serve your homemade biscuits with jam or homemade raspberry sauce, cinnamon butter, or biscuits and gravy—I love this particular recipe. Or a swipe of homemade honey butter really kicks it up a notch! You could also create delicious breakfast sandwiches with these breakfast sausages.
So Many Variations
I bake biscuits often, and use the same process and success tips when making all of my favorite variations including cheddar biscuits, everything bagel biscuits, and zucchini biscuits. I also make biscuit-topped vegetable pot pie and biscuit breakfast casserole. And you can absolutely turn these into dessert with my recipes for biscuit-topped berry cobbler and homemade strawberry shortcake.
I make these biscuits on almost a weekly basis, and what makes them a hit every single time is the combination of very cold butter and buttermilk. Additionally, the careful folding and flattening method helps produce dozens and dozens of flaky layers. Follow the recipe below closely.
Bake the biscuits in a cast iron skillet, which helps the edges crisp up beautifully. Additionally, use a pastry brush to coat the tops of the biscuits with a little buttermilk before baking.
You can use a food processor to cut the cold butter into the dry ingredients, but if you do not own one, you can use a pastry cutter instead. A pastry cutter is an extremely helpful baking tool.
Homemade Biscuits (Popular Recipe!)
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Total Time: 35 minutes
- Yield: 8-11 biscuits
- Category: Bread
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
These homemade biscuits are soft and buttery with hundreds of flaky layers! This biscuit recipe only requires 7 simple ingredients and they’re ready in about 35 minutes.
Ingredients
- 2 and 1/2 cups (313g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled), plus more as needed for hands and work surface
- 1 Tablespoon baking powder (see Note)
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda (see Note)
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup (8 Tbsp; 113g) unsalted butter, cubed and very cold
- 1 cup + 2 Tablespoons (270ml/g) cold buttermilk, divided
- 2 teaspoons (14g) honey
Optional Topping
- 2 Tablespoons (28g) butter, melted
- 1 Tablespoon (21g) honey
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425°F (218°C).
- Make the biscuits: Place the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl or in a large food processor. Whisk or pulse until combined. Add the cubed butter and cut into the dry ingredients with a pastry cutter or by pulsing several times in the processor. Cut/pulse until coarse crumbs form.
- If you used a food processor, pour the mixture into a large bowl. Make a well in the center. Pour 1 cup (240ml/g) buttermilk into the well and drizzle honey on top. Using a large spoon or spatula, fold until it begins to come together. Do not overwork the dough. The dough will be shaggy and crumbly with some wet spots.
- Pour the dough and any dough crumbles onto a floured work surface and gently bring together with generously floured hands. The dough will become sticky as you bring it together. Have extra flour nearby and use it often to flour your hands and work surface as needed in this step. Using floured hands, flatten into a 3/4-inch-thick rectangle as best you can. Fold one side into the center, then the other side on top. Turn the dough 90 degrees, so it’s now horizontal. Gently flatten into a 3/4-inch-thick rectangle again. Repeat the folding again. Turn the dough horizontally one more time. Gently flatten into a 3/4-inch-thick rectangle. Repeat the folding one last time. Flatten into the final 3/4-inch-thick rectangle.
- Cut into 2.5- or 3-inch circles with a biscuit cutter. (Tip: Do not twist the biscuit cutter when pressing down into the dough because this seals off the edges of the biscuit which prevents them from fully rising.) Re-roll scraps until all the dough is used. You should have about 8–11 biscuits. Arrange in a 10-inch cast iron skillet (see Note) or close together on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Make sure the biscuits are touching.
- Brush the tops with remaining buttermilk. Bake for 18–20 minutes or until tops are golden brown.
- Remove from the oven. If adding the optional topping, whisk the melted butter and honey together. Using a pastry brush, brush the warm biscuits with honey butter topping. Serve warm.
- Cover leftovers tightly and store at room temperature or in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
Notes
- Make Ahead & Freezing Instructions: Baked biscuits freeze well for up to 3 months. Thaw at room temperature or in the refrigerator, then warm up to your liking before serving. You can also freeze the biscuit dough. Prepare the dough in steps 2 through 4. Wrap up tightly in plastic wrap (plastic wrap is best for freshness) and freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator, then continue with step 5. Also, after step 4, you can wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to 2 days before continuing with step 5.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Pastry Cutter or Food Processor | 2.5- or 3-inch Biscuit Cutter | 10-inch Cast Iron Skillet (or Baking Sheet with Parchment Paper) | Pastry Brush
- Baking Powder: In 2025, I updated this recipe to use both baking powder and baking soda. I’ve found that the texture, color, and flavor excels when using a combination of both. If you’ve always made this recipe using 2 Tablespoons of baking powder, you can certainly continue to do so! However, by reducing the baking powder to 1 Tablespoon and adding 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda, the biscuits brown more, have a flakier texture, crispier edges, and you don’t risk a bitter chemical aftertaste.
- Butter: Cut into 1/2-inch cubes. Keep butter as cold as possible until you need it. I recommend placing the cubed butter in the freezer for about 15 minutes before you begin.
- Buttermilk: You can substitute whole milk for buttermilk if desired. However if you’d like the tangy flavor, which I highly recommend, you can make your own DIY buttermilk substitute. Add 2 teaspoons of fresh lemon juice or white vinegar to a liquid measuring cup. Add enough milk to make 1 cup. (You need 1 cup in the recipe, plus 2 Tbsp for brushing—you can use regular milk to brush on top.) Whisk together, then let sit for 5 minutes before using in the recipe. Whole milk is best for the DIY sour milk substitute, though lower-fat or nondairy milks work in a pinch. (In my testing, the biscuits don’t taste as rich or rise quite as tall using lower-fat or nondairy milks.)
- Cast Iron Skillet: If your cast iron skillet isn’t well seasoned, I recommend greasing it with a little vegetable oil or melted butter. Brush a thin layer of either on the bottom and around the sides. No need to heat the cast iron skillet before using, though you certainly can. Place in the preheated oven for 15 minutes before arranging the shaped biscuits in it.
- Flavors: Try my flavorful biscuit variations: cheddar biscuits, zucchini biscuits, and everything bagel biscuits.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 biscuit
- Calories: 212
- Sugar: 2.4 g
- Sodium: 283.5 mg
- Fat: 9.7 g
- Carbohydrates: 27.5 g
- Protein: 4.1 g
- Cholesterol: 25.4 mg
Reader Comments and Reviews
I made sure to follow the recipe. My family thought they looked great and smelled nice, but tasted awful. WAY too much baking powder.
Maybe you didn’t use aluminum free baking powder. These are amazing biscuits as evidenced by the other comments. If you really like biscuits, I recommend trying the recipe again with aluminum free powder.
Could that be why mine taste sour? Some bites actually pull all of the moisture out of your moth! Lol!
I’ve made these no less than 15 times and always get endless praise, which is saying something because I’m from the south! My husband says they’re better than his momma’s and he asks me to make these at least twice a week.
This is -the- biscuit recipe!
I baked these biscuits for Christmas morning brunch. I tripled the recipe and made about 36 biscuits. They were delicious BUT don’t bake them on a flat stone with no sides. I put them in the hot oven on my beloved baking stones and the butter started melting and dripping all over the bottom of the oven. Smoke was billowing out of the oven, smoke alarms were beeping, everyone ran outside with watery eyes while I turned on fans and opened all the windows. I just let them continue baking, what else could I do? They tasted amazing and every biscuit was devoured.
Hi Toni, so glad you enjoyed them! It’s best to bake them on something with sides to avoid butter leaking out and burning in the oven. You could place a large pan on the rack below if it ever happens again.
I’m sorry, but this visual you painted had me cracking up!
Loved this recipe! So classic and we got the thick flaky sandwich-able biscuits of our dreams. Used the lemon juice in milk substitute, worked great. I only changed the recipe to grate frozen butter into the flour mixture, it always seems to work best for me.
Tender and tasty! So easy, too!
I have been baking biscuits for a long time from other recipes. my biscuits always come out dry and not flaky. I found Sallys Baking addition and today I made the best biscuits ever. Thank you Sally.
These were fabulous! I put the butter in the freezer for a few minutes and was able to grate it into the flour so I didn’t need a food processor. Used my trusty cast iron skillet and they came out perfectly. I was a little worried about using honey, but it really just seemed to be a sugar-substitute more than a pronounced flavor. Thank you for the detailed notes, too! (Particularly about using that much baking powder) 🙂
I used my hands for the whole process but these worked out great Fantastic recipe and instructions.
First time making biscuits with my new larger food processor. Awesome! Easy and delicious
I made these today. Followed the recipe exactly (including aluminum-free baking powder which I always use). The only thing I did differently was use an All-Clad stainless steel pan and they came out perfectly and delicious. I will only use this recipe in the future when making biscuits.
As always, Sally’s recipes deliver great results! My food processor is broke, so I had to resort to manual labor and a pastry cutter. I lightened the load by freezing the butter and grated with a cheese grater.
I was a bit skeptical when I turned the shaggy dough out onto the work surface. It seemed too dry and delicate when I folded. But I stuck to it.
These things grew in the oven into the biggest, fluffiest and flaky biscuits that I have been dreaming of! Perfect! Thank you! I can stop the search, this is the one recipe for biscuits. Look no further.
Hello! I only have sweet cream salted butter in the house, can I make it with that and leave the extra salt out that the recipe calls for? What do you recommend .. I can go buy unsalted another day if you think it may make them too salty
Hi Rachel, if using salted butter, you can reduce the additional salt in the recipe to 1/2 teaspoon.
I made these biscuits tonight for the first time! They are delicious! Best I’ve ever made! This recipe is a keeper! Thanks for sharing.
can i skip honey
Hi Amy, we recommend keeping the honey in the dough (you can use just plain melted butter instead of honey butter on top) but you can leave it out if desired.
I make these biscuits once a month and have had to use an extra tablespoon or two of buttermilk to get the dough in the shape to fold. I’ve noticed other recipes use the same measurements except for two cups of flour. This tweak works for me and my family likes them.
I’ve made these several times and they’re amazing (with the sausage gravy recipe linked!!) every time!
So, I don’t like flaky biscuits. Can I just substitute room temperature butter for cold butter to avoid that? Thanks.
Well to avoid that just skip folding the dough several times. That is what makes it flaky. Also who does not like flaky biscuits!!!
FANTASTIC!!! Easy too if you closely follow recipe and tips!
Delicious! I followed as exact, just with 1-month-expired flour. Made 9.5 biscuits; had to squish them to fit in a 10′ skillet. Recommend the honey butter 🙂 Will try to handle the dough less next time.
Our granddaughter makes these and we put dry beef gravy over them! Delicious!
Can you add cinnamon and raisins to this recipe?
Hi Vivian, We haven’t tested these biscuits that way but it should be just fine! Let us know if you give it a try.
These biscuits are everything I’ve ever wanted in a homemade biscuit. I followed the recipe exactly, using the parchment paper on a cookie sheet technique (biscuits touching). Perfection. I didn’t do the honey butter on top but may try it another time…these will definitely be in the rotation. I consider myself a pretty good baker but I’ve had trouble with biscuits in the past, so I was thrilled with how quick and easy these turned out to be. Thank you!
My husband said “it’s so good I could eat 40 of these”. I used powdered buttermilk and froze my cubed butter for a while. I missed the note on reducing baking powder if yours had aluminum until mine were already baking. They had a slight after taste but not bad. I’m going to start buying better baking powder and try these again!
Excellent thank you.
Omg! My first ever batch of TALL, soft biscuits!
I’m a fairly accomplished baker, but biscuits have always been my bane. I’ve tried probably 6-8 other recipes over the years and been discouraged with the results–flat, or chewy, or tough. When making these, I studied. I read through all your detailed instructions and watched the video to make sure I’d do it right. After mixing by hand, I was worried because my dough was looking awfully crumbly (not wet) and not wanting to pull together, so I feared the extra handling would make them tough.
But they came out tall and golden with a million visible layers on the sides, and were nice and soft on the inside. My boyfriend said they’re the best biscuits he’s had, and my Southern mama asked for the recipe after seeing a picture. This will definitely be a family favorite!
These biscuits are truly the best. I live with many people who have extremely high standards and this was a universal hit. Sally, thank you!
I make these using Kefir instead of buttermilk, and a combination of bread and whole wheat flour and they come out great every time. Thank you.
Best biscuit recipe ever! Thanks for all the detailed instructions and guidelines. It really works.
I just made these biscuits and after making hockey pucks over the years, I finally made beautiful, delicious, fluffy biscuits. Thank you so much! The video on technique is so helpful. I found out in that one video everything I did wrong over the years. My family thanks you. 🙂
I used to make homemade buttermilk biscuits many years ago from a recipe that our pastors wife shared with me. But because it’s been quite a while I figured I would look up a recipe to make sure I had all my bases covered.
In the past week I have made two different batches of biscuits using your recipe. My family including my grandchildren and my neighbors say they are awesome and delicious.
Biscuits that tastes this good “will make a puppy pull a freight train”
God bless
These were amazing. Thank you soooo much for sharing such wonderful recipes. And thank you for mentioning “aluminum free” baking powder.