Buttermilk Drop Biscuits With Garlic and Cheddar Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Is it better to use milk or buttermilk in biscuits? ›

What's the Difference Between Buttermilk Biscuits and Regular Biscuits? As the names might suggest, regular biscuits do not contain buttermilk, while these do. Regular biscuits are typically prepared with milk or water instead. Buttermilk adds a nice tang to the biscuit flavor and helps them rise better.

Why aren't my buttermilk biscuits fluffy? A non-fluffy, flat biscuit can be caused by a few things: too much liquid in the dough (resist the urge to add more buttermilk to make the dough come together and use the heat of your hands and a bit more kneading instead). Over-mixing the dough can cause flat biscuits.

Whichever flour you use, make sure to MEASURE CORRECTLY. Too much flour will result in dense, dry, and tough biscuits.

If your biscuits are falling apart…

If this sounds familiar, you could be adding too much flour to your dough without knowing it, disrupting the ratio of dry to wet ingredients.

There are many theories about why Southern biscuits are different (ahem, better) than other biscuits—richer buttermilk, more butter, better grandmothers—but the real difference is more fundamental. Southern biscuits are different because of the flour most Southerners use. My grandmother swore by White Lily flour.

Just as important as the fat is the liquid used to make your biscuits. Our Buttermilk Biscuit recipe offers the choice of using milk or buttermilk. Buttermilk is known for making biscuits tender and adding a zippy tang, so we used that for this test.

The secret to the best biscuits is using very cold butter and baking powder. We've made a lot of biscuits, but this easy biscuits recipe is the one we turn to the most (they are so fluffy!). See our easy drop biscuits and cheese drop biscuits for even easier biscuits.

SouthernKitchen.com says, "Ask any Southern chef or sagacious biscuit grandma and you'll hear a pattern emerge: they all swear by White Lily flour."

Keep the oven hot.

When baking buttery treats like biscuits, the key is to bake them at a temperature where the water in the butter turns quickly to steam. This steam is a big part of how the biscuits achieve their height, as it evaporates up and out.

Whenever you're working with buttery doughs like biscuits, pie crust, shortbread, and the like, you're constantly reminded to chill the dough frequently, as well as chill the dough before baking time. Baking biscuits directly from frozen also keeps the biscuits from spreading and flattening out.

What kind of butter is best for biscuits? ›

In general, with baking you want to use unsalted butter so that you can control the amount of salt in your final product.

A hot oven helps biscuits bake—and rise—quickly. We recommend 475˚F for 15 minutes.

Increasing the amount of butter definitely makes the biscuit "taste" softer, more crumbly, and more flaky.

While it's certainly important to prevent the dough from sticking to your work surface, hands or rolling pin, too much bench flour can absorb into the dough. Biscuits made with too much bench flour are tough and leaden, like a sad, doughy hockey puck.

Refrigerated biscuits retain more moisture and therefore taste better when reheated (vs. storing at room temperature).

Sugar and Salt: Add flavor. We don't add a lot of sugar (just 1 tablespoon). Cold Butter: I love using European-style salted butter, like Kerrygold or Plugra, since they make our biscuits tender and delicious. If you don't have European salted butter, plain butter works (salted or unsalted).

Buttermilk is a versatile ingredient that can add lift to baked goods for the fluffiest pancakes, waffles, and biscuits, tenderize chicken and other proteins, give rich texture and tangy flavor to dressings, and shine in delicate desserts like buttermilk panna cotta.

Buttermilk can be a good choice for weight loss as it is typically lower in fat compared to regular milk. It contains essential nutrients and can be a satisfying addition to a calorie-controlled diet. Its probiotic content may also aid in digestion, further supporting weight management.

That slightly bitter, kinda “tinny” flavor you often experience when biting into a muffin, biscuit or scone is the result of using a baking powder in high quantities — as is needed for these quick-rise treats — with aluminum in it.