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
This was my first attempt at making a true southern style biscuit. Made sure my butter was ice cold as well as the buttermilk and was treating the dough like a new born baby !! Did bake in heavy pan so edges and bottoms had an amazing crust and the center dough was tender. I’d like to try cake flour next time to see if I can get an even more tender center as well as cut them in 1 and 1/2 inch thick for a taller biscuit. Thanks for your wisdom !!
I have tried unsuccessfully for years to make fluffy delicious biscuits similar to those my Grandmother used to make fresh twice a day. This recipe worked well and my family was thrilled with the biscuits.
So easy and so good!!! My new go to biscuit recipe!!
So glad you love them, Kammi!
Can honey be left out without effecting the texture? Family member with dietary restrictions. Thank you.
You can leave the honey out if necessary.
Oh my goodness! WOW! I got a sudden hankering for some biscuits with jam, but didn’t have any on hand. I’ve been doing some more baking lately so I looked for recipes that might use what I already had on hand. I ended up needing to make some substitutions because I was out of some stuff so my expectations were lowered. I only had bread flour on hand, and I didn’t have aluminum free baking powder (so thankful the recipe provided an alternative to that) and I only had salted butter. I did have to use a splash more buttermilk to get the consistency shown in the photo due to the bread flour, and I reduced my added salt by a smidge to account for the salted butter. I also did not have a biscuit cutter so I just cut them into rectangles, rounded them a bit more by hand and said my prayers as they went into the oven in my skillet. I just tried a bite plain and they are so amazing! Buttery, soft, a little crunch on the sides and bottom from the skillet. Just perfect! I will still add more butter and some jam but I will be making these all the time now!
These were so easy to make and turned out amazing!!! Thank you for another winning recipe!
I love this recipe and have made it lots of times, but in our new house, I keep burning them! I lowered the temp by 25 degrees but they are still burning. Any suggestions?
Hi Dawn! We recommend getting an in-oven thermometer so you know the exact temperature of your new oven. Most ovens are a little (or a lot) off.
Solid recipe!! Baking time closer to 16 min bake time in my oven. Another keeper, Sally, thank you.
This is truly the easiest biscuit recipe I’ve tried and delicious. So flaky and light. Yum, yum!
The perfect flaky, lite biscuit every time. Our family of 7 loves them. I triple the recipe to use for two meals.
Sooo good! I made these with a pot of soup. My youngest didn’t want to try them, but he ended up gobbling his up. So good!
I’ve never had success with any buttermilk biscuit recipe before. This one is magic!
Ok – these biscuits are EVERYTHING! So easy, so simple, so absolutely wonderful and great fluffy texture. Did smaller (heart) shapes and got a perfect dozen (3 for each of us). Doubled the honey/butter recipe and all of everything was gone. 10/10 recommend!!!! <3 <3 <3
I’ve used at LEAST 15 of your recipes!!! And they’ve ALL turned out amazing!!!!! Never going to another baking website!!!! (BTW….I use to have my own bakery before retiring…)
I love baking breads. I get a lot of compliments when I make breads. Most times I am the dedicated baker for family events. That being said, I have tried many different biscuit recipes that I found online or in a book. Most them were good and some I felt were not great. This one hits different. It made me question why I didn’t think of little things such as what pan to use. It made all the difference in flavor. I always ask my family when I make something new and this got a solid 8.75. I’m not my into the sweet breads and I questioned the amount of honey but just like any other recipe I have done, I went by the measurements and it was perfect. It perfectly balanced out everything.
A taste of my childhood. Ty so much
I made these today and they turned out tasting strangely like pretzels! I froze the dough for later in the week, defrosted for a day in the fridge, and used a slightly smaller biscuit cutter than recommended. The insides were soft, flakey, but a very deep brown, and the top (brushed with buttermilk!) was very pretzel flavored. They were a hit with my family but I do wonder if something I did made them like this!
Hi Sally
These are so good !! Have you thought pfdoing a sweet potato biscuit. I have an old family recipe but know that your version would be perfection!!!
Hi Traci, we’re so glad to hear that you enjoyed these biscuits! We haven’t tested a sweet potato biscuit recipe before, but they sure do sound delicious. We’ll certainly keep it in mind for the future!
I used White Lily flour and added cream cheese and chives to the recipe. Perfect!
This recipe was so easy! I’m a solid baker but I’ve always struggled with biscuits. Not this time! I didn’t have buttermilk on hand so I substituted it with 3/4 C plain Greek yogurt mixed with 1/4 C + 2 T of water and they came out perfect!
I’m at 9200’ elevation. What changes should I make?
Hi Susan! I have very little experience with high altitude baking; I wish I could help. Many readers have found this chart helpful, if you’d like to check it out. https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/learn/resources/high-altitude-baking
You’ll most likely need to increase the buttermilk in the recipe.
These are so good! I’ve never made homemade biscuits before and these are so easy and delicious! Thank you for sharing this recipe!
Delicious! I used the powdered buttermilk and it worked great. Only needed to bake for about 12 minutes
Success! Using this recipe was my third attempt at biscuits. I guess third times a charm. The directions were straightforward and simple. The biscuits were delicious.
This is a fabulous recipe. As all of Sally’s Baking Addiction recipes are. I’ve made many of her recipes and have not gone wrong. Next I’m making the sandwich bread recipe. I am particularly fond of the scones. The scones I have made are always a hit.
Thank you Sally for sharing your recipes with us.
I am thinking of using this recipe for Chicken and “Dumplings”. I’d bake the biscuits and cook the chicken recipe separately. Then I’d split a biscuit and pour the chicken on top when serving. What do you think?
Hi Katrinka, that should work great! If you’re interested, we also have this recipe for biscuit pot pie, if you’re interested.
Thanks for this! By boyfriend loves biscuits so I’ve been trying to find out how best to make them, and every time mine always turned out looking like lumpy scones because I was afraid of “overworking the dough”. Thanks to these detailed instructions I finally got that flaky, laminated texture and they were frikin delicious! I’ll definitely be making these again!
I love this recipe. I increased the butter to 1.5 sticks and it worked just fine. We love to eat biscuits with syrup. Perfect!
Could you cut the biscuits into squares so you wouldn’t need to refold the scraps that occurs when using the biscuit cutter? Would it effect the biscuits height? Thanks!
Hi Christy! Cutting these biscuits into squares should work just fine.
Woke with a craving! Well I woke up craving biscuits. McDonald’s & Wendy’s are less than a mile… But let’s face it, those biscuits are good when you’re on the road. But I wanted biscuits I could eat on all day with jelly or ham or honey or just butter. So I brought out the old dough bowl, rolled up my sleeves, and dug in. GIRL! FRIEND! I have two words for you, NUM-YUMMY! Simple no nonsense recipe with absolutely beautiful results. Crunchy bottoms (iron skillet), layers of flaky biscuit dripping in real butter, just the right amount of twang from the buttermilk (I use powdered. I’ll bake with btrmlk but I will NOT drink it! Tried it once and uh yeah no. I may have added an extra fold. Gently gently. Nevertheless these are noteworthy biscuits and I will reference this recipe no doubt countless times. In fact I’m going to top a pot pie with them. Thanks again I really enjoyed them and the process.