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Hi Bold Bakers!
IN THIS RECIPE: You’re about to get a homemade buttermilk biscuit recipe straight from the Southern source — my great friend and Bold Baking Network expert Brian Hart Hoffman, founder & editor in chief at Bake from Scratch Magazine!
As I mentioned in his Hummingbird Coffee Cake recipe, Brian is a close friend of mine and knows a thing or two about good southern baking, so I’ve asked him to share some of his favorite recipes with us as part of our Bold Baking Network. His famous Buttermilk Biscuits recipe is perfect for any type of topping you throw at it, from butter to honey, or even gravy, there’s a reason the South is considered to have perfected the biscuit.
Here’s a message from Brian about it:
“In the South, we love our biscuits—buttermilk biscuits, angel biscuits, drop biscuits, and cathead biscuits to name a few!“
We’ll just have to have him give us recipes for all of those other biscuits, too!
What Is A Buttermilk Biscuit?
Pretty much everyone knows what a biscuit is — so a buttermilk biscuit is one that uses buttermilk to tenderize the dough and lend a slight tang to the flavor. It’s the ultimate biscuit, perfect for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. It can be the star of the show with gravy, or it can be an ideal side placed in a lovely basket to go with dinner.
Just know you’ll get a soft, buttery, and flaky experience from it!
Buttermilk
It’s in the title, so I urge you to use buttermilk when making these biscuits! If you don’t have buttermilk on hand, you can use my Perfect Buttermilk Substitute, which is essentially indistinguishable from what you’d buy in a carton at the store and uses only two ingredients to make.
Buttermilk (or my substitute) will give you a tender, perfect biscuit.
What You Need To Make Buttermilk Biscuits
- Baking sheet
- Parchment paper
- Large mixing bowl
- Whisk
- Pastry blender (or two forks)
How To Make Buttermilk Biscuits
When I say that this recipe is not difficult, I mean it. It’s essentially mixing in a bowl — and the toughest thing you’ll come across is cutting the cold butter into the flour, and even that is made easier with a dough cutter or forks!
Beyond that, it’s as simple as making sure your biscuits are cut to size and are the right thickness for proper baking. The written recipe has clear steps and suggestions on how to do this, and you’ll have yourself Brian’s Famous Buttermilk Biscuits in no time at all.
Tips For Making Brian Hart Hoffman’s Famous Buttermilk Biscuits
- The combination of all-purpose flour and cake flour mimics the soft wheat White Lily flour that many Southern bakers use to make their biscuits. This yields a very tender biscuit.
- You want to keep all of your cold ingredients very cold in this recipe. Cold butter gets worked into your dry ingredients, cold buttermilk is added, and then the biscuits get a good chill before being baked. This chilling process cools the butter back down. Once the butter meets the hot heat of the oven, it expands and creates those flaky layers Southern biscuits are known for.
- For when the craving hits, you can make a batch of these biscuits and store them in the freezer for hot biscuits on demand.
Bake from Scratch (And TheBakeFeed)
If you’re looking for great recipes & writing, check out Brian’s Bake from Scratch magazine, which is offered in both print and digital.
If you’re looking for a delicious baking social media experience, make sure you’re following along on Instagram on the incredibly popular @TheBakeFeed — add it to your usual daily scrolling and you won’t be disappointed! While you’re there, add Brian’s personal account, @brianharthoffman, to keep up to date with him on a different level
Thanks a million, Brian! We can’t wait to have you back for more soon.
The Bold Baking Network
Bigger Bolder Baking is thrilled to introduce you to the Bold Baking Network, a team of talented chefs, creators, and experts looking to teach, entertain and help you on your baking journey. Here are more articles from our amazing collaborators.
- Hummingbird Coffee Cake
- Chocolate and Raspberry Panna Cotta Tart
- Cookies N Cream Ice Cream Cake
- Lemon Blondies
- Chocolate Pancakes (With A Secret Ingredient)
- Dirty Chai Brownies
- Cinnamon Roll Muffins
- Homemade Hamantaschen Cookies
- Baking Powder VS. Baking Soda When Baking Cookies
- Passover Cream Puffs
- Carrot Cake Muffins (With A Cream Cheese Filling)
- Enhancing The Taste Of Sugar
Try These Recipes!
Watch The Recipe Video!
Ingredients
- 1 ¾ cups (220 grams) all-purpose flour
- 1 ¾ cups (220 grams) cake flour
- 2 tablespoons (24 grams) granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon (15 grams) baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda (optional, for extra rise)
- 1 tablespoon (9 grams) kosher salt
- 1 ¼ cups (284 grams) cold unsalted butter, cubed
- 1 cup (240 grams) cold whole buttermilk
- 1 large egg (50 grams) , lightly beaten
- Flaked sea salt , for sprinkling
- Softened butter and honey , to serve
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425°F (220°C). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In a large bowl, whisk together flours, sugar, baking powder, baking soda (optional, for extra rise) and kosher salt. Using a pastry blender or 2 forks, cut in cold butter until mixture is crumbly. Stir in cold buttermilk until a shaggy dough forms.
- Turn out dough onto a lightly floured surface. Pat dough into a rectangle, and cut into fourths. Stack each fourth on top of each other, and pat down into a rectangle. Repeat procedure 3 times. Pat or roll dough to 1-inch thickness. Using a 2½-inch round cutter dipped in flour, cut dough without twisting cutter, rerolling scraps as necessary.
- Place biscuits 2 inches apart on the prepared pan. Freeze until cold and firm, about 40 minutes to 1 hour, or overnight.
- Brush biscuits with egg, and sprinkle with sea salt.
- Bake until golden brown, about 15 to 20 minutes, depending on how frozen biscuits were.
- Serve warm with softened butter and honey. Store leftovers at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 2 days.
Do you put the egg in the biscuit dough or do you just use egg for brushing on top? Instructions a bit confusing.
If I use self rising flour for this recipe. How additional levener should I add? Thanks
I made these and they turned out beautifully. I like Brian’s piling and patting method. Might try it with your Irish scone recipe. I think I would reduce the salt quantity next time I make it which is going to be in about an hour for lunch. Thank you.
Yikes. That’s not even close to a Southern biscuit recipe. I’m gonna have to try it, though!🤣
Absolutely delicious! The layers were so beautiful, and way better than if I had used canned dough!
Seems like a lot of salt 1tablespoon?
Can you leave these longer in the freezer. For instance days, weeks etc?
Interesting. Never heard of putting eggs and sugar in a biscuit. I’ll have to try this.
The recipe on the Baked From Scratch site adds a 1/2 a teaspoon of baking soda and this recipe does not. Is this ingredient important? The biscuits I made using this recipe came out kind of dense would the addition of baking soda help?
Can I leave them frozen until I need them since I have a small household and twelve will be a lot for us?