Flaky Buttermilk Biscuits

A few weeks ago, I made a batch of buttermilk biscuits to serve with dinner. The biscuits emerged as they always do, sugar-crusted with a light, tender interior. Everyone gobbled them up, and while historically this has been a biscuit I love, this recent batch left me wanting: more butter, more flakiness, more salt.

In need of guidance, I turned to my baking cookbooks, and in Melissa Weller’s A Good Bake, I came across a recipe for flaky buttermilk biscuits. Her recipe called for a higher proportion of butter, less sugar, and more salt. She described the biscuits as “soft and flaky, rich with butter, and with a lot of layers you can see from the sides.”

It sounded promising. I made them, and much to my delight, the family — and I — gobbled them up. These, to me, are perfection. When broken apart from end to end, the biscuits open accordion-style, each pleat flaking into the next. The exterior is crisp and burnished and a little bit sweet thanks to a sprinkling of turbinado sugar. Heavenly on their own, these biscuits are even better with a slick more of salted butter. What isn’t?

I have made a few small changes to the recipe — I’ve added a teensy bit more salt (just a gram!), more baking powder (to encourage a little more lift), and more buttermilk, which I found essential to get the dough into a cohesive ball without overworking it. I also employ a few other tricks I’ve adopted since learning this previously favored buttermilk biscuit recipe, which, I must note, still produces an excellent biscuit, also flaky in texture, but softer and lighter, which some people might find preferable. (Though they do need more salt … I’ve updated the recipe.)

I’ve summed up all of my biscuit making knowledge here:

8 Tips for Excellent Buttermilk Biscuits

1. As always: use a scale for best results. The difference between 9 and 10 grams of salt may seem negligible, but it makes a difference (i.e. 10 grams is better.) Moreover, if you use cups to measure the flour you’ll end up using more or less than what is called for, which will require using more or less buttermilk.
2. To create those visible flaky layers, it’s all about the rolling and folding. In this recipe, you’ll roll the dough into a 14-inch rectangle, fold it envelope style, turn the dough 90 degrees; then repeat twice more.
3. Cold butter, cold buttermilk. This is not unlike the process for making pie dough. Using cold ingredients, working quickly, and not overworking the dough is important. Here, I use a pastry cutter to cut the butter into the dry ingredients, but you absolutely could use a food processor: ten 1-second pulses should do it.
4. For a no-fuss process, cut the biscuits into squares (as opposed to rounds, which require re-rolling the scraps).
5. Chill the cut biscuits in the fridge for 30 minutes before baking.
6. Brushing the biscuits with cream, buttermilk or an egg wash encourages browning. A sprinkling of turninado (or other) sugar creates that irresistible salty-sweet dynamic.
7. For me: baking in the upper third of the oven encourages the best browning. (Every oven is different, however, so watch closely and adjust accordingly.)
8. If you find the bottoms of your biscuits get brown too quickly, double up on the sheetpans for baking — I do this with my challah recipe, and it works beautifully to prevent overbrowning on the bottom.

How to Make These Biscuits Ahead Of Time (Fridge/Freezer)

There are three ways you can make these biscuits ahead of time:

1. You can freeze the baked and completely cooled biscuits in an airtight container for up to 3 months. Thaw them overnight at room temperature. Reheat them at 350ºF for 15 minutes before serving.
2. You can transfer the unbaked portioned biscuits (or the square of biscuit dough) to the fridge for as long as 2 days.
3. You can freeze the unbaked portioned biscuits. Freeze the cut biscuits (without the buttermilk wash or sugar topping) on a sheet pan. Once frozen, transfer to an airtight bag or vessel and freeze for up to 3 months. Bake them directly from the freezer — apply the buttermilk wash and sugar to the frozen biscuits — then transfer to the oven. The biscuits will need a few more minutes so rely on visual cues: golden tops and bottoms.

How to Make Buttermilk Biscuits, Step by Step

Gather your ingredients: only six! Flour, butter, buttermilk, salt, sugar, baking powder.

Whisk together the dry ingredients.

Add the cold, cubed butter.

Cut the butter in using a pastry cutter or the back of a fork. You also could do this in the food processor.

Add the buttermilk …

… and stir to combine.

You may need to knead the dough briefly with your hands to get it into a cohesive ball.

Turn the dough out onto a work surface and pat into a square.

Roll out into a 14-inch long rectangle.

Fold the top third down.

Fold the bottom third up.

Turn the block 90 degrees.

You’ll repeat this rolling-and-folding proces twice more.

After the third set of fold, pat the dough into a square.

Cut the square into 9 equal pieces.

Transfer the squares to a sheet pan and chill for 30 minutes.

Then brush with a little more buttermilk and sprinkle with turbinado sugar if you wish.

transfer to the oven and bake until golden, 25-30 minutes.

Look at those layers…

… irresistible.

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