From as far back as the chuck wagon days when “Cookie” would whip up a batch to go with his Dutch oven stew, hearty golden biscuits have been a warm and welcome accompaniment to almost any meal. But making good biscuits can be tricky.
The traditional method involves cutting cold butter into sifted flour. While this does result in nice flaky buttery biscuits, it can be a difficult technique to master. The warmth of the baker’s hands quickly softens the butter, making it all but impossible to achieve the desired dough texture.
Substituting sour cream for the butter and some of the milk removes the difficulty of working with the butter, and makes the biscuits moist and airy. The sour cream also makes the finished biscuits slightly tangy. They aren’t quite sourdough, but they are headed in that direction.
Here’s how it works:
Super Easy Homemade Biscuit Recipe
Required Utensils
- Large Mixing bowl
- Spatula (or large stir/spoon for mixing)
- ½ teaspoon (tsp.) measuring spoon
- 1 teaspoon (tsp.) measuring spoon
- ¼ cup dry measure*
- 1 cup dry measuring cup*
- 1 cup liquid measuring cup*
- Baking Sheet
- Large Spoon, Biscuit cutter, or ice cream scoop**
* Wet & dry measures can be used interchangeably, but it saves time and helps to have multiples and not need to clean and dry them between steps.
** A medium-sized ice cream scoop is the perfect size for scooping up drop biscuit amounts of dough.
Dry Ingredients
- 2 cups flour (plus a “little bit more”)
- 2 tsp. sugar
- 2 tsp. baking powder
- ½ tsp. salt
Wet Ingredients
- ¾ cup Sour Cream
- ½ cup milk
- ¼ cup milk (held in reserve)
Preheat oven to 450 degrees
Working the Biscuit Dough
- Thoroughly combine the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.
- Mix the sour cream into the dry ingredients until well incorporated.
- Mix in the ½ cup measure of milk.
- Very slowly mix in the final ¼-cup of milk until the dough just comes together as a moist springy ball. Depending on the humidity and other atmospheric conditions it may not be necessary to use all of this last ¼-cup. The dough at this point should be on the springy side and fairly moist to the touch.
- Use the “little bit more” flour to lightly dust the ball of dough, making it less tacky/moist and easier to work with, but not so dry that it loses it’s spring or moistness.
- Knead the ball of dough for a minute or two. It’s pretty tough and can take a bit more handling than most biscuit dough, so don’t be too timid.
Baking & Presenting
- The dough can now be put in biscuit form in one of several ways (rolled out and cut into biscuits using the round biscuit cutter, or scooped into drop biscuits using the ice cream scoop, a spoon, or by hand).
- Place the cut dough or biscuit drops on an ungreased cookie sheet, leaving a little room for expansion.
- Bake at 450 until golden brown (approximately 15-17 minutes).
- Remove from the oven, and serve warm, or gently reheated if allowed to cool.
- Store in a cool dry place.
(Yields roughly 12-16 medium to large-sized biscuits, depending on the baker’s preference for finished biscuit size)
This is a fairly fool proof recipe for airy, moist, and tangy biscuits without much of the hassle associated with traditional biscuit recipes.
Glenn Kaufmann - Having moved every four years up to the age of 12, I've always been something of a restless soul ready to take on the next big thing. I ...
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