When you are first learning how to cook, homemade biscuits may seem difficult. I promise they aren’t difficult.
This is learning how to not over mix your ingredients so you get soft fluffy biscuits. This recipe is part of my learn to cook series, where I am cooking every recipe out of my old home economics cookbook.
A biscuit is a type of “quick bread”. Quick bread is any bread that you can make without using yeast. Other types of quick breads are muffins, banana bread, biscuits, and popovers.
Since this recipe was for junior high students, you know this is an easy homemade biscuit recipe.
They are made with flour, baking powder, salt, shortening (or butter) and milk. Sometimes people add just a little bit of sugar to the biscuits as well.
The perfect biscuit should have a golden brown top and bottom. The inside should be soft and fluffy.
To make a good biscuit you need to measure your ingredients carefully and do not overwork the dough. This is a bread that is best made without a mixer. Often when we bake we use a mixer, but not here. If you over mix the dough they will become tough and hard.
The basic steps of preparing a biscuit are to measure your dry and your wet ingredients. You will sift together your dry ingredients. If you don’t have a fancy sifter, don’t worry, use a colander because it will work very well too. By shifting your ingredients together you are mixing your dry ingredients and giving them some air so they won’t be too dense.
You will then add your fat to the dough and work this in. You will want to coat the flour mixture with the fat. You can use a pastry blender or a fork. You will want to work in the fat. It will first take on the appearance of peas, and then it will look like coarse crumbs. Up until this point, you can work the dough as much as you want.
When you add the wet ingredients mix only until everything is blended. This will not be a smooth dough, it will be lumpy. Do not let this worry you. Only mix until all of the dough is wet. At this point, you can overwork the dough.
If your biscuits come out hard, next time, mix them less. If you follow these steps you will have a perfect breakfast treat. Be sure to serve these with some homemade sausage gravy.
Love Biscuits? Try your hand at some of these great biscuit recipes
- Make-Ahead Freezer Biscuits
- KFC Buttermilk Biscuits
- Denver Biscuits
- Sour Cream Biscuits
- Cracker Barrel Old Country Store Biscuits
- Stuffed Biscuits with Ham
Homemade Biscuits
Ingredients
- 2 cups flour
- 3 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 cup shortening
- 3/4 cup milk
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
- Sift dry ingredients together into a mixing bowl. Cut the shortening in with a pastry blender or a fork until it is like coarse crumbs. Add the milk all at once. Stir just enough to make a soft dough, do not over mix the dough. Place dough on a lightly floured surface.
- Either pat the dough out the biscuit dough or roll the dough with a rolling pin until the dough is 1/2 inch thick. When the biscuits are at a 1/2 thickness cut with a floured cookie cutter, or glass. Place on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes.
- Biscuits are done when they are golden brown slightly freckled top and bottom with white sides. They should be twice the size of unbaked biscuits and free from excess flour. For a special treat you can brush the tops of the biscuits with melted butter.
Linda Philley
can you make big fluffy biscuits with bisquick
Stephanie
I don’t think they will be super tall, I think for those you really need to make buttermilk biscuits.
Erika Jones
These tasted good but didn’t rise. Think it was my baking powder. Have had it a minute. I found that they were dry. Thinking I may need to add a little more milk. I knew I should before I patted them out. But like to follow the recipe the first time. How wet should the dough be? Should it all stick together or be a little crumbly?
Stephanie
Baking powder that isn’t fresh can keep biscuits from rising. Sometimes humidity can affect flour. Your flour may have absorbed some moisture and packed it down, making it heavier so you might have gotten more flour in your recipe. I like my biscuit dough to be just dry enough so the dough doesn’t stick to your hand. Hope this helps.
Gordon Sallee
Hi Stephanie, I enjoyed your video on baking biscuits and I noticed something you did, which I used to do. After visiting the oldest flour mill in Texas (San Antonio), they put on a baking demonstration. One thing they pointed out was we should never rotate the cutting device when cutting the raw biscuits from the mother dough. We should press down then remove the raw biscuits to be placed on a baking sheet. The reasoning behind this is that when one rotates the cookie/dough cutter it realigns the molecules in such a way as to not allow the biscuits to completely rise while baking. I would be willing to bet you would enjoy a tour of the mill and afterward it is the absolute best place in San Antonio to eat breakfast. Thank you for your video. Gordon
Stephanie
I will have to check them out. Thank you!
Don Hosfeld
Hello, enjoy watching and using your recipes. I made these biscuits and they turned out great except they didn’t rise much at all. I followed recipe exactly making sure to measure precisely. How might you suggest I alter for next time? .
Stephanie
Do you live in a high altitude or something? I believe these recipes use baking powder, sometimes when it isn’t super fresh it’s activation is low, and it won’t work well. I might suggest that you test out baking powder by sprinkling it into some hot water, if it bubbles it is good to use.