Joanne Chang’s Buttermilk Biscuits
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I have read about Joanne Chang in blogs and magazines for years, watched her beat Bobby Flay in a sticky bun throwdown, drooled over both of her cookbooks at the library, but for reasons I can’t explain had never made any of her recipes until a few days ago.
Joanne Chang’s Buttermilk Biscuits
The recipe for buttermilk biscuits with maple and black pepper featured below, is in Dana Cowin’s new cookbook, Mastering My Mistakes in the Kitchen. Many of you likely know Dana as the Editor in Chief of Food and Wine magazine, as someone who knows food better than anyone, as someone who wouldn’t make too many mistakes in the kitchen, or who would be an unlikely person to admit to them.
Well, the secret’s out: In MMM, Dana confesses to not being a great cook (though I’m still not sure I quite believe her). I don’t want to give too much away because both the forward, written by Thomas Keller, and Dana’s own introduction are inspiring and funny, highlights being a vignette revealing how Dana’s “fails” in the kitchen led to the creation of a Food and Wine help column under a pseudonym, a story about killing lobsters with Eric Ripert and how he taught her to focus, and a note on how good cooking starts with honesty.
What follows in the book are recipes with advice and tips from 65 professional chefs, including Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Jose Andres, April Bloomfield, David Chang, and Thomas Keller who offers a three-step, foolproof recipe for roast chicken.
Despite the presence and importance of these chefs in the book, however, the recipes are not cheffy at all: think meatballs (and how to make them light and tender), potstickers (and how to make them not only brown but also crisp), great ribs (and a no-fuss way to make them).
Of the 20 recipes I have bookmarked, top picks include halibut cooked in red coconut curry, baked ziti Arrabbiata, Korean meat loaf (made with a whole cup of gochujang chile paste), and braised chicken with leeks.
How to make Better Biscuits
I have made many a biscuit over the years, but until making this recipe, never have I folded the dough over itself four times before cutting it, a step that helps create beautiful layers in the finished biscuits, and never have I chilled the cut biscuits for an hour before baking, a step that helps make the biscuits flakier. This recipe is appended with 10 tips from Joanne ranging from how best to incorporate baking soda (I never would have imagined this to be an issue) to the role sugar plays in baking not only for sweetness but also for texture (also news to me).
- Folding the dough four times truly creates incredible flakiness. These biscuits are the lightest, flakiest, best biscuits I’ve ever made.
- For a taller biscuit, roll the dough to a thickness of 1-inch.
- Maple syrup + Maldon sea salt make for an irresistible salty-sweet top.
- Bake on the highest rack for beautifully golden biscuits in 15 minutes. (Every oven is different, however, so watch closely and adjust accordingly)
- For no-waste (trimmings/scraps) biscuits, cut the dough into squares as opposed to circles.
If you live in the area, this is the best buttermilk. Argyle Cheese Farmer also makes the best yogurt. The Niskayuna Co-op carries both:
The four-fold shaping process:
I find that a one-inch thick dough creates the size biscuit I like best
Square biscuit made from the scraps:
PrintButtermilk Biscuits with Maple and Sea Salt
- Total Time: 45 minutes
- Yield: 6-8 biscuits
Description
Source Dana Cowin’s Mastering My Mistakes in the Kitchen.
Update November 2021: I recently upped the amount of salt here. It had previously been 1 teaspoon (6 grams). I think these biscuits need the updated amount (reflected in the ingredient list below), but if you’ve made these in the past and have been satisfied with the result, you can stick to the 1 teaspoon.
Ingredients
- 3 cups (384 g) all-purpose flour, plus more for your work surface
- 3 tablespoons (44 g) sugar
- 1 tablespoon (13 g) baking powder
- 1.5 teaspoon sea salt or 2 teaspoons kosher salt (10 g), see notes above
- ½ teaspoon (2 g) baking soda
- 12 tablespoons (170 g) cold unsalted butter, diced, plus more for serving
- 1¼ cups (330 g) cold buttermilk
- pure maple syrup, for rubbing the biscuits
- nice sea salt or coarse freshly ground black pepper for sprinkling
Instructions
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda in a large bowl. Using your fingers, work in the butter just until the mixture turns into coarse crumbs with some pea-size pieces of butter remaining. Using a wooden spoon, stir in the buttermilk just until the dry ingredients are evenly moistened.
- Turn the shaggy dough out onto a very lightly floured work surface and pat into a ½-inch thick rectangle. Fold it in half once so that it’s 1-inch thick. Do this three more times to create layers in the dough. Then roll the dough out to about a 1-inch thick rectangle (or large enough so that a 3-inch biscuit cutter can stamp out 6 biscuits) using a lightly floured rolling pin: Place the pin in the middle of the dough and roll it forward, then put the pin back in the middle of the dough and roll it backward.
- Using a lightly floured 3-inch round cutter, cut out the biscuits (in one motion — do not twist the cutter), as close together as possible, and transfer to the prepared baking sheet leaving 2 inches between them. Gently pat the dough scraps together (do not overwork the dough), reroll and cut out more biscuits. (Note: You could just cut the rectangle into 8 squares, which will leave you with no scraps to reroll.)
- If you have time, put the baking sheet in the refrigerator and chill the biscuits for at least an hour before baking — they will be flakier. (Skip this step if you don’t have time.)
- Preheat oven to 425ºF.
- Use the back of a spoon to rub the biscuits lightly with maple syrup and sprinkle with salt or pepper to taste.
- Place the biscuits in the oven and immediately turn the temperature down to 400ºF. Bake the biscuits until they’re risen and golden, 15 to 20 minutes. I get the best results baking these on the top rack of my oven, but every oven is different, so play around with what works best with your oven. Serve warm, with butter.
- Prep Time: 25 minutes
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
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81 Comments on “Joanne Chang’s Buttermilk Biscuits”
Wow. I’ve been trying to figure out how I can make your oven fries every other day, and now this recipe. Thanks so much! Will try them out with a soup/stew as soon as it cools off (again).
Yes! We are having a beautiful day here in upstate New York, but we have already had some really cold mornings and evenings. I am ready for fall!
I have recently had the desire to make a homemade bread, I discovered your peasant bread recipe and now this wonderful buttermilk and biscuits, now I can’t wait to get started. Thank you so much. From another upstate New York follower?
Fun! Where in upstate are you? I love it up here. Love both of these recipes. Good luck!
Hi Ali! I am craving those biscuits! Great pics. I make your cheddar biscuits, a lot, and I always cut them in squares. They are too good to waste even a morsel (plus, I am really bad about overworking the scraps). Plus, using a sharp straight edge helps prevent me from twisting the cutter (which of course, keeps the biscuits from rising to their full potential). We can’t have that! Thanks for sharing the tips to better biscuit making. And it looks like I will be buying yet another cookbook!
Haha, no! We can’t have that! Joanne makes a note of that, too — no twisting allowed! I really like the square shape, and I especially like that there is no waste. And yes re the cookbook: I am making the chicken with leeks and mushrooms this weekend for my sister and her family. I will be sure to report back. hope you are well!
These just came out of the oven and they are so good. I can’t believe how high they rose and how flaky they are! The folding makes a huge difference. I couldn’t justify adding butter to a biscuit that already has two tablespoons but then I got over that really fast, haha!
Ali, one of the reasons I enjoy your website is that not only do you teach your readers but you also help us master recipes. Thanks for sharing! Have a great weekend with your sister!
Trish, you are too cute, thank you so much for your kind words. It really means a lot. So happy you liked these and that the technique worked for you. I am so excited for a weekend with my sister! Thank you!
This is probably a silly question, but when you say to fold the dough over onto itself four times, do you mean keep fold it in half making it smaller and smaller?? Or fold it in half, then roll it out again, and fold it in half again, and again, and again? Sorry, I could tell for sure from the pictures/description. Thank you! These look DIVINE. Wish I could have been your taste tester!!
Not silly at all. There is no rolling during this folding process: just a gentle patting after each fold. You have to pat a little bit otherwise you won’t be able to make four folds. I just fold, pat it down a bit, fold, pat it down a bit, etc.
WIsh you could have been a tester too! I’ve eaten far too many biscuits these past three days! I did unload some on my neighbor yesterday…she didn’t seem burdened 🙂
You’re killing me with these right before lunch. Would it be wrong to leave work early to go home and make biscuits?
haha, no, not at all 🙂
Ok lady, I made these tonight for our 10th Anniversary dinner. Re.Dic.U.Lous. That’s what these are. Now, I didn’t get the big rise out of mine because I missed the part where you don’t pat the dough all the way out between folds but I still got about the best cut biscuit I’ve ever made. I think maybe I can close the book on biscuit recipes now that I’ve found these….maybe.
I want these! They look so good!
Alicia, they are super good. Hope you like them!
Biscuits are among my worst all time fails!! If I could still eat them, I would have definitely attempted for the potluck. Well…probably would have been too big of a wuss. Yours look beautiful and love your description of the book. xo
Alexandra these look so beautiful and I am so pinning them! I’ve been dying to make biscuits with gravy from scratch so at least I have the biscuit part down. Thank you for all the great tips! Dana’s cookbook sounds absolutely something I would want.
Katya, when I made the pepper version, I totally thought of biscuits and gravy. If you make any discoveries, please let me know!
Seriously I don’t know what to say here? The world’s most beautiful photo of a biscuit? One of the most lucious things on the planet? To go with the homemade vegetable beef soup that is on this upcoming cold and beautifully rainy Fall weekend? The thought of smearing them with maple syrup sends me into biscuit nirvana! Okay, you rock like always and I am up to my elbows with flour just thinking about these! Did you ever watch the movie called ‘Stranger Than Fiction’ with Will Ferrell? He plays an IRS agent who falls in love with a rebel tax avoiding baker and he brings her ‘flours’……;) greatest movie ever! xOOx!
I have not seen that! And, my sister is coming to town this weekend, and I was thinking I should have a movie lined up for us — this sounds perfect!! I love Will Ferrell. Thank you. YOur stew sounds lovely, and I do hope these biscuits make an appearance aside it — I think you will approve! xoxo
We love that movie too 🙂
It’s happening tonight 🙂
G’day Your buttermilk biscuits look great! I can almost smell them from here!
Cheers! Joanne
Thank you, Joanne!
It barely got above freezing here in Alaska today – perfect chili and biscuit weather! These whipped up quickly with all the ingredients on hand, and they were divine!! We’ll be making them again, and again….
In Australia we call biscuits scones they can be savory or plain and served with jam and cream. The secret to light and flaky scones is not to overwork your dough so the folding the dough over again and again is a confronting technique for me. Love the addition of the maple syrup and black pepper and will try that on top of a cheese scone.
Elizabeth, I was skeptical of the folding too for the same reasons, but I think if you’re careful not to really work the dough and stick to just folding and patting, you should be just fine. Also, last fall at some point, I watched the girl from Pies and Thighs in Brooklyn make biscuits with Martha Stewart, and she was handling the dough much more than I’ve ever seen, and she wasn’t afraid to reroll the scraps and reshape — she even said the biscuits made from the scraps tend to rise higher, which I thought was interesting. I’ll be curious to hear your thoughts if you make these! Thanks for writing in!
Wonderful post and cookbook review and, most importantly to me, gorgeous biscuits! You describe the techniques so well. Maple syrup glazed is a new idea to me – I’ll have to try it!
Yes!
Sounds like that was some potluck that you went to. The biscuits look heavenly. First and only time I made biscuits, they were hockey pucks. My husband does the biscuit work at our house and there is no recipe, just putting it together and forming by hand, gently. His mother made incredible biscuits and he uses her biscuit pan that has been in active duty at least since the ’40s.
How cool! I love that your husband can whip up biscuits without a recipe. I hate that I am a slave to cookbooks when it comes to baking. Alas, one day I’ll get there. That pan sounds amazing. Hope you are well!
I agree on the square shape! My brother in law, who is a chef hailing from New Orleans (so I trust him in all things biscuit, and gravy, and seafood, and now I’m hungry) says that not only should they be square, but they should be nestled next to each other in the pan. With the sides touching, he says they rise much higher. Something to try!
Ahhhh, very interesting! I’m so trying that next time around. Thanks!
Ahhh this is a good post 🙂 Basically, between my mother and my baby brother, I am trailing the family pitifully in biscuit-making. Mine are good, definitely — but theirs are fantastic. Award-winning. AND SO TALL. So tall that they slump over in the oven sometimes, haha. Now I have some secrets in my arsenal! Can’t wait to have my brother come visit for breakfast!….
Oh yum. Made these biscuits the other night for a small group that meets at my house and they were SO good. With half of them we made little ham sandwiches with a little dijon and the rest we ate for dessert with butter and honey. Love the brush of maple syrup on top! (I’ve also been making your oven fries as often as I can get away with. So yummy.)
This looks amazing! As soon as we get into our new routine with tiniest baby, I am going to make these! Because I am such a fan of yours and trust your opinion, I ordered all 3 cookbooks listed above! I cannot wait! Flour has a Birthday Cake recipe that I’m going to try for our oldest daughter’s second birthday next (Too quickly has my baby grown). I’m hoping the cake turns out well as all the yellow/white cake recipes I’ve tried have yielded uber-dense and heavy cakes which I’m not a fan of. So thanks for the recommendation!
Thanks for the recipe. I made them and they were delicious. I especially loved the syrup. They were best eaten the day they are made.
Just pulled these out of the oven! I added a pinch of cayenne for a little kick and they smell amaaaazing 🙂 thanks for the recipe!
When I have pastry scraps I lay them on top of each other rather than scoop them all up in a ball – I think it makes a big difference.
We all make mistakes in the kitchen, it’s how we learn to be better. Love these tips and I can’t wait to employ them on my next biscuit baking adventure!
sorry if you’ve already addressed this. but is there a important difference between using pastry cutter and your hands to incorporate the butter?
Thanks!
Hi Megan,
I haven’t addressed this actually, and it’s a good question. I was actually surprised to see the recommendation to use your hands to work in the butter, because I was always told that everything should be COLD COLD when making biscuits and pie dough, etc., so the more you can keep the warmth away from the butter, the better. But, I think if you start with butter that has been chilled enough, and work it just enough so that it is the size of peas, there shouldn’t be any harm done, and if you prefer to use a pastry cutter, by all means, use it — it might be even better than using your hands, and there is no way you could harm the process by using it. Hope that helps!
A very elderly Southern neighbor once instructed my mother on biscuit-making and told her that the secret was touching the dough the bare minimum, and certainly never, EVER rolling it out twice. From that time forward, Mom would cobble together the little scraps from cutting round biscuits, and press them into what we called “the messy biscuits” … somehow they were always the perfect ratio of crunchy and soft, and how my brothers and I fought over them! My kids covet them now, but alas, I usually claim Mother’s Prerogative.
Haha, I love it! Great story. I love the messy biscuits, too, with their knobby, misshapen edges…yum. I have been on a square biscuit kick since posting the recipe — love it for topping with poached eggs.
Reading your blog just makes me feel….happy!!! Will definitely try these tomorrow as I have extra buttermilk.
Yay!! Happy is good. I love these biscuits. Hope you make them!
Sweet! I’m a southern girl–daughter to a phenomenal cook who is and was my inspiration in the kitchen–who bakes a ton of biscuits. Sometimes a soft-wheat buttermilk drop biscuit, sometimes a whole white wheat baking powder biscuit that incorporates a smidgen of sugar, and sometimes my Mother’s quick self-rising flour, baking soda, buttermilk & vegetable oil biscuit. No matter which one I’m baking, they are all a hit. Last Sunday morning I made a cinnamon drop biscuit using the softest of soft wheat flour, White Lily Self-rising, with a touch of sugar, loads of ground cinnamon, buttermilk and topped with a maple confectioner sugar glaze. I took them to Church for our hospitality table and one person said that I should put a “candle on top” to celebrate! Biscuits are inherently Southern and I appreciate seeing a “not so southern” version that I will enjoy incorporating in my recipe box. I found your blog in search of a no-knead bread and have enjoyed reading your blog over the weekend. I haven’t made your Mother’s Peasant bread yet, but it is on the agenda for this week. I live in Southwest GA and yeast bread are my nemesis! I can’t tell you how many recipes I’ve tried and failed. It is either too hot or too cool in this old house I live in. Hopefully I’ll find success with yours as my DH yearns for homemade bread from my oven.
this was diviiiineeeee,
but does it have to be whole 100% buttermilk?
These look amazing!! I love the idea of salty and sweet. I’m always on the look out for a new biscuit recipe. I will have to try this. Your pictures are beautiful!
Yum! These look so pretty and delicious! Thanks for all the tips, can’t wait to try them x
looking forward to doing this recipe on Thursday. Question, where did you get the copper biscut cutter from the pictures posted above? I have been on a endless search for one since I have found this recipe
I wish I knew! I asked my mother, and she has no recollection of where she bought them. I searched the internet to no avail. I will keep my eyes peeled.
Making these to accompany my thanksgiving day meal – thank you for the recipe! I can’t remember how I stumbled upon your site but it’s most definitely bookmarked. I know how tedious blogging can be, especially all the photos and such while prepping/cooking so thank you, thank you!