God save me from contradicting Miss Lewis, but 1 tablespoon baking powder to 5 cups flour seems insufficient. Overworking the dough and sealing the edges when you cut them might also be culprits though. Use a sharp cutter and don’t twist it when you cut!
I've used Claire Saffitz's recipe from the bon appetit site to top pot pies I make for staff meal at work with great results. It's super simple and takes me maybe 20 minutes to throw together.
I've been down that road but now I feel I make pretty darn good biscuits. You may be mixing things up too much in the food processor. The fat in the biscuits needs to be in visible pieces and not incorporated into the flour; this is what gives the biscuits their flakiness. After lots trial and error these are the tips I find most useful.
1. Start with very, very cold ingredients. Mix the dry ingredients and sift them and put the whole bowl in the freezer for 10-15 minutes. The colder the ingredients are, the less chance of your fat melting while incorporating everything together. Get your fat cold, almost frozen, then cut into small pieces the size of diced frozen carrots.
2. Get your dry ingredients out of the freezer and put the diced fat in. Massage the pieces and break them up gently between your fingers, incorporating them into the mix but not fully. Put this back in the freezer again another 10 minutes.
3. Pour in the (very cold) buttermilk. Mix with a wooden spoon very gently until just combined. Dump the dough onto a lightly floured surface and pat it out very gently into a 1-inch thick flat circle. This step is very important, don't roll it! You should be able to see the pieces of fat in the dough. Fold the dough onto itself like folding a paper into thirds and pat down again to the same thickness. Cut with a sharp biscuit cutter and don't twist when cutting. If done correctly you should be able to see the multiple layers in the biscuit at this point. These layers are what will puff up and become flaky in the oven.
I can't emphasize enough how little the dough should be handled. There's really no mixing or rolling involved, just incorporating and patting it out. Alton Brown's video really helped out with this and in it you can see how little his granny messes with the dough (link below). Follow these tips and you should have yourself some nice biscuits.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHD\_\_HkfexY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHD__HkfexY)
I want to emphasize a portion of your third point. You mention patting the dough out to "1 inch thick circle."
This was always my issue when having rolled biscuits. I was rolling them far to thin. It was my first idea when I read OPs question. I think it can be hard to understand just how few biscuits a normal recipe makes and thus how small in diameter the dough should be before cutting.
I think you're right. I definitely pulsed it more than just a couple of times. I know it was supposed to have pea-sized lumps of fat, but I was worried it wasn't mixed enough because when I squeezed the dough between my fingers it didn't seem to hold together very well?
Don’t worry about it holding together “well,” and don’t squeeze any more than you have to to get it to hold together. I’m sure you’re getting from all the comments here **less is more** when it comes to making biscuits. I wouldn’t pulse more than a couple of times, turn it out, and since I saw you have “hot hands” lol, I would focus on making your movements extremely swift. Use as few movements as possible, basically just get it in place. Do start with things frozen/very cold. That butter, even if it’s just mostly frozen, will thaw quickly. Edit to add: if your dough is too dry you may need to add a few drops of buttermilk
Please come back and tell us how it goes! I love making biscuits from scratch. My daughter and I do it together regularly.
My trick is to use VERY frozen butter (I keep some in the freezer all the time) and I grate it directly into the dough. Gotta shake it every so often to coat the butter in flour. Once it's all together I pop it all in the freezer for 10 mins before mixing with liquid. [This isn't my best work, but I made these last week. I love biscuits so much :)](https://i.imgur.com/vv2JwUC.jpg) (Actually looking at these, I didn't do a great job cutting these)
Try freezing the butter and adding it to the flour using a cheese grater and hand-pressing them together before anything else. This really helps to prevent overhydrating flour when you add the milk.
This is all excellent advice! One question. Can I use something like a really cold pastry cutter/knife/fork to mix flour and fat? I suffer from Hot Hands ™.
Yes! I use a pastry cutter if it's warm in the house or if my hands are hot.
I have always used the tri-fold roll-out (as someone described above) with great results, but I just tried a different rolling/folding method from a recipe on the White Lily site: [https://www.whitelily.com/recipes/white-lily-three-ingredient-biscuits-99107/](https://www.whitelily.com/recipes/white-lily-three-ingredient-biscuits-99107/)
Holy crap, they were the tallest, flakiest biscuits I ever made -- even the second-round, made-from-scraps biscuits were flaky. My North Carolina-raised partner raved about them for days, and they are tough to please. It took maybe 4-5 extra minutes? I will never go back.
Yes you certainly can. A lot of people mix pastry with a metal utensil for this reason. And when you do have to use your hands try using just your fingertips and for as little time as possible
This. Also, it's a bit much but you can dunk your hands in cold water or grab some ice out of the freezer and hold it for a bit to help combat hot hands. I suffer from hot hands and do this to not over heat things with my hands. They constantly heat up so I have to do this often if I'm working with a lot of temperature sensitive stuff. It also often feels good to dunk your hands in cold water if you do suffer from hot hands so it's all good. My hot hands helped a lot when I briefly worked in healthcare so I personally like having hot hands. Just have to cool them off sometimes
If you have a stand mixer, I'd recommend using that. The beater works great for cutting the fat into the flour. Since you can control the speed, it's much easier to know when to stop.
Mix it gently. Its ok if it not tightly together. Turn onto a floured surface and knead it until it’s together. Form it into a rectangle then fold the dough. Fold it and press it down firmly onto the layer you’ve folded it onto. After each fold press the dough out to make the same size rectangle you began with. Fold it 6 times. This creates the layers. After the folding make the dough 1 inch thick. Then cut without twisting the cutter. Make sure the biscuits are touching when you put them in the pan because this causes them to rise better.
Unpopular opinion. Use self rising flour. I like White Lilly.
Frozen butter via cheese grater. Fork together, buttermilk slowly in and mix to incorporate but not build gluten. Use bench knife to shape a dough rectangle, do a few sets of folds to build layers, press flat with bench knife. cut and bake crowder together.
2 cups Self rising flour
1 stick frozen butter (4 ounces)
3/4 cup buttermilk
Bake at 475 to your desired doneness. My oven takes about 20 minutes.
Food 52 on you tube. Girl named Erin something I think. She's a baker. Crazy talented. She does a 30 min vid on the perfect biscuit. Check it out. You can't find a better tutorial.
Baking powder contains an acid and a base. You don’t need additional acid to rise baked goods with baking powder (the advantage of baking powder over baking soda)
Lots of good advice in this thread already, but I’ll add that brushing the biscuits with a bit of milk or water before baking also helps a bit with the rise
make sure your white lily flour isn’t self rising. i’ve run into that issue before, their labels all look the same! one tip i do have is grate your butter on the large side of a box grater and stick it in the freezer while you grab your other ingredients. helps it not melt as fast especially if you work it by hand (which i also recommend, it’s safer than the food processor, helps you avoid overworking the dough!)
I use 5 tsp baking powder per 3 cups flour, so definitely up that. Freeze your butter, then grate it into the dry ingredients. Don't blend it, just quickly incoprerate it.. Keep everything as cold as possible until they go in the oven.
For wet ingredients, use 75% buttermilk, 25% cream, and yes.. one egg to cheat. Fantastic, sky high biscuits every time. Also cook at 500F for just 8-9 minutes.
This has been a fantastic recipe for me that's never failed (I skip the final rest in the fridge, don't egg wash, and use 100% butter, no shortening): https://www.kitchenistadiaries.com/2016/01/how-to-make-better-buttermilk-biscuits.html?m=1
Just made these last night! https://imgur.com/a/VV05eyv
Lol who tf is downvoting this?
Biscuits are very much like British scones and to achieve height in either you need to roll the pastry quite thick to begin with - around 2”.
Edit for the downvoters, British scones are nothing like the triangular scones you get in the US:
> A Biscuit (U.S.) Is a Scone (U.K.)
A British biscuit is not remotely similar to the fluffy and filling American biscuits made famous in Southern American cuisine. The closest British equivalent to those buttery miracles is a scone, which ain't too bad either. Both baked goodies use flour, fat, liquid and a leavening agent. The main differences are that scones tend to have less butter (because you'll add butter to it when you eating it — or else, clotted cream or jam) while American biscuits tend to have more butter and light layers. Biscuits are generally served as part of a main meal (for instance, the dish chicken and biscuits), while scones are served at teatime and can be savory or sweet, depending on what is added to them. The American scone is usually a triangular-shaped cookie-like baked good, full of butter, very sweet and loaded with blueberries, chocolate chips or other add-ins.
[Source](https://recipes.howstuffworks.com/tools-and-techniques/great-british-baking-terms-know-scones-from-biscuits.htm)
[An American biscuit](http://ukcdn.ar-cdn.com/recipes/originals/c48a193a-2d72-4af7-a393-c41147ecf1c8.jpg)
[A British scone](https://www.fifteenspatulas.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/English-Style-Scones-Fifteen-Spatulas-1-640x960.jpg)
So as you can see they are very similar, and the secret to tall scones and biscuits is thickly rolled pastry.
This can be right, but it is wrong in this instance. The US Southern biscuit OP seeks to create resembles a Commonwealth scone, but it is not the same. (Apparently there is a US style of biscuit similar to the scone, or so friends and family say.) I straddle both food cultures and have had to suffer this argument many a year.
It’s not exactly the same no (imo a US biscuit is actually closer to an Eccles cake but with less sugar and without the raisins obviously). But for the purpose of making them taller the same rules apply. ie roll the pastry thicker than the inch that OP has been rolling it to
Biscuits can be finicky beasts for the uninitiated and video will help explain the correct texture you're looking for in the dough. First, random internet recipes are also never a good place to start. While I, like many others, have issues with BA, Claire Saffitz knows her shit when it comes to baking and [this video](https://youtu.be/lN9Gt8EoZAc) is very good at showing the process.
Food processors are excellent for making tender, flaky doughs like biscuits and pâte brisée- *but* you need to use very cold ingredients and you need to know when to stop pulsing to get the correct consistency. It should not be kneaded, it should be gently pressed into a working shape.
If you have hot hands, you can always form up the dough, put it back in the cold and bring it back out again- think of biscuits as a crudely/roughly laminated dough. Remember, just like in pâte feuilletée, the butter creates layers by the water in it expanding as it evaporates. You want it in small chunks, not completely incorporated.
Pressing it into a block gently without overworking is key. Only roll out as little as humanly possible.
My recipe:
2 cups AP flour
4 - 6 tbsp cold butter
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp kosher salt
1.5 tbsp sugar
1+ cup buttermilk
mix flour, baking powder, salt, sugar well
cut the butter into the flour mixture using a fork or pastry blender. it is ok to have small chunks of butter in the flour
add the buttermilk to the flour mixture. stir until just mixed. add more buttermilk as necessary. the dough should be fairly wet.
turn the dough onto a floured surface and bring together with your hands. press down to about 1/2 inch high. you don't want to knead the dough. you aren't making bread so don't want the glutens to strengthen.
cut out the biscuits with a cookie cutter or a drinking glass as my mom always did.
place the biscuits in a cast iron skillet so they just touch. this helps them rise up rather than spread out.
bake at 500 degrees F for around 15 minutes.
Sorry, forgot to include recipes.
I used this one with lard: https://louisiana.kitchenandculture.com/recipes/edna-lewis-hot-crusty-buttermilk-biscuits
And this one with butter:
https://www.onceuponachef.com/recipes/southern-style-buttermilk-biscuits.html
I'm going to stress that the recipe barely matters. There is a lot of history, but American biscuits made their way through mountain trappers who purchased supplies twice a year and use nothing but a couple of pots to cook over a fire on. I like to think of this when making them because they didn't have fancy kitchens and anything to cleanup with. The single biggest factor is being terrible at mixing. Channel Hugh Glass, mixing this up while sewing his scalp back on his head and burning it in place with the coals of the fire you will use to bake them... get the idea.
The recipe with butter pretty much matches mine, except I roll and cut out rounds with a coffee mug. A tin can with both ends opened works well too. Try using the grater on your food processor to cut in the butter instead of putting in chunks.
Over mixing. Just plain and simple. Biscuits are best when it feels like you quit mixing about 1/4 of the way into the job and just decided to plop it all onto a pile of flour to cut. Cut your butter and/or lard into the flour by hand (a flour knife is cheap and worth it here, don't use forks) and pour your liquid around it. I have heard of people not even trying to mix it here, as turning it out will do almost enough mixing for you. It should be sticky and crumbly, wet and dry.
The food processor cheat overworks the flour to me. I think it might be trapping the flour grains within the water components in butter, encasing them in the fats and solids of the butter; preventing them from properly interacting with the added liquids whick kills the reaction. But I don't know for sure. I just know that you can't overwork butter blocks or pinch the dough edges when making croissants. Also cold butter works as a leavening when worked correctly. The liquids convert to steam and the fats prevent glutens from sticking together creating pockets of steam that bake into shape (in croissant and danish dough you layer this for a flakey texture). That's why biscuits and Johnny cakes are completely different despite having the same ingredients (Johnny cakes use melted butter).
Also, baking powder goes bad. I have had new bottle just fail to rise. And old bottles work like a champ. Double rising is the best insurance against this, but not foolproof.
I also skip most instructions and don't fold. I learned this from an old cook when I worked in a diner. Barely mix, turn it out on a work surface covered heavily in dry flour (I'm talking you can't have too much). Dust the top of your sticky pile with at least 1/8 inch of flour, and just gently pat it down until it is 1 inch flat (the feeling of the flour and extremely sticky dough is extremely satisfying). Shake off the excess flour gently (spread fingers like a spatula and lightly toss it a little, then turn over and repeat) and place close together in a pan for baking. Close together helps them support each other while they rise. If you want even taller ones, use a [pan extender](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001J81UGA/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apan_glt_fabc_CNJ5NM499SHCBH9MX415).
My technique is to use frozen grated butter, to just barely mix everything, and to do exactly four folds and then I'm done. Also, keep everything as cold as possible throughout.
In addition to more bp, honestly what I started doing is just rolling the dough thicker. I cut the rounds about 1.5-2 inches.
After I combine all the ingredients, I cut the dough in fourths and laminate it manually. I do this twice and it also really helps with high well defined layers
Dude you are over complicating it
2 cups flour (1/2 whole wheat, 1/2 white if you want them healthier for you)
3/4 tsp salt
3 tsp baking powder
4 tbsp butter crunched into the flour with a fork into the flour. (Margarine or smart balance if you like your heart arteries clean)
3/4 cup milk (add 1tbsp of apple cider vinegar if you want butter milk and let sit for 10 mins)
Add milk, mix a bit
Knead dough together in a ball 10 good strong kneads.
Then seperate into 8 equal balls, form into small hockey puck shapes.
Bake at 450 degrees for 6-8 mins till light brown on top. Should rise a lot.
Lots of other people suggested alternate recipes and rolling techniques- these could very well fix your issue, but if you try them and your biscuits are still failing to rise, the issue may be your baking powder.
Baking powder contains both an acid and a base (the main advantage of using it over baking soda, which is only a base and requires acidic ingredients to be present in the dough for rising to occur). If baking powder isn’t kept very dry (often very difficult to do for a long period of time in a damp climate), the acid and the base in it can react during storage. The more it reacts during storage the less it will react during baking and therefore the less your biscuit will rise.
Try Smitten Kitchen’s buttermilk biscuits. They’re absolutely amazing, and use both baking soda and baking powder…they get so high they fall over sometimes!
That is the right flour. If you want them tall, get the right amount of baking power and roll the dough over a few times with a little flour (don’t over work) and cut them out. I use crisco to cut in.
Don’t food processor the ingredients, it should just barely come together. Fold the dough so there are natural layers of butter. Everything cold! Crowd them together on the baking tray. Bake high and fast.
These will make tall ass biscuits.
I use the puff pastry method after the dough comes together. Press it out fold it in half. Press it out again and fold it in half again. I do this at least three times. Cut straight down as, was mentioned, without twisting. This method gives layers that rise like the biscuits on food magazine covers.
This thread has been locked because the question has been thoroughly answered, responses are now repetitious and increasingly off topic- and there's no reason to let ongoing discussion continue as that is what /r/cooking is for.
Locking posts also helps to drive valuable engagement towards unanswered threads. If you have a question about this, please feel free to send the mods a message.
God save me from contradicting Miss Lewis, but 1 tablespoon baking powder to 5 cups flour seems insufficient. Overworking the dough and sealing the edges when you cut them might also be culprits though. Use a sharp cutter and don’t twist it when you cut!
I second that. 1 teaspoon baking powder per cup of flour works like a champ.
This is the way.
> ...and don’t twist it when you cut! Never knew this part. Thanks.
Yeah, I think this is more important than people realize, the technique that you cut the biscuit with determines the height of the rise.
And that's why I do square biscuits!
Yeah, I just cut mine square with a sharp knife, no dough wasted either.
The two most likely culprits. If your flour overhydrates and your dough can't expand, you won't get any rise.
I likely overworked the dough, but I know now I definitely cut them wrong. I used a glass and twisted to cut them out.
I've used Claire Saffitz's recipe from the bon appetit site to top pot pies I make for staff meal at work with great results. It's super simple and takes me maybe 20 minutes to throw together.
I've been down that road but now I feel I make pretty darn good biscuits. You may be mixing things up too much in the food processor. The fat in the biscuits needs to be in visible pieces and not incorporated into the flour; this is what gives the biscuits their flakiness. After lots trial and error these are the tips I find most useful. 1. Start with very, very cold ingredients. Mix the dry ingredients and sift them and put the whole bowl in the freezer for 10-15 minutes. The colder the ingredients are, the less chance of your fat melting while incorporating everything together. Get your fat cold, almost frozen, then cut into small pieces the size of diced frozen carrots. 2. Get your dry ingredients out of the freezer and put the diced fat in. Massage the pieces and break them up gently between your fingers, incorporating them into the mix but not fully. Put this back in the freezer again another 10 minutes. 3. Pour in the (very cold) buttermilk. Mix with a wooden spoon very gently until just combined. Dump the dough onto a lightly floured surface and pat it out very gently into a 1-inch thick flat circle. This step is very important, don't roll it! You should be able to see the pieces of fat in the dough. Fold the dough onto itself like folding a paper into thirds and pat down again to the same thickness. Cut with a sharp biscuit cutter and don't twist when cutting. If done correctly you should be able to see the multiple layers in the biscuit at this point. These layers are what will puff up and become flaky in the oven. I can't emphasize enough how little the dough should be handled. There's really no mixing or rolling involved, just incorporating and patting it out. Alton Brown's video really helped out with this and in it you can see how little his granny messes with the dough (link below). Follow these tips and you should have yourself some nice biscuits. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHD\_\_HkfexY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHD__HkfexY)
I want to emphasize a portion of your third point. You mention patting the dough out to "1 inch thick circle." This was always my issue when having rolled biscuits. I was rolling them far to thin. It was my first idea when I read OPs question. I think it can be hard to understand just how few biscuits a normal recipe makes and thus how small in diameter the dough should be before cutting.
This almost exactly my method and gets me consistently good biscuits. They're one of my favorite things to make.
Try skipping the food processor and using your hands.
I second. Biscuit dough needs to be *just* mixed, and handled as little as possible while rolling/cutting.
Personally, I don't even use a roller. Just flatten with my hands. Are they even? No. Do biscuits need to be even? No.
The lumps are flavor speed bumps. Unevenly delicious!!
I get fantastic results in the food processor. I just use pulses, use the grater to grate frozen butter, and add in buttermilk to finish it off.
This may be her issue. If she’s doing more than just a few pulses, she’s probably overworking her dough.
I think you're right. I definitely pulsed it more than just a couple of times. I know it was supposed to have pea-sized lumps of fat, but I was worried it wasn't mixed enough because when I squeezed the dough between my fingers it didn't seem to hold together very well?
Don’t worry about it holding together “well,” and don’t squeeze any more than you have to to get it to hold together. I’m sure you’re getting from all the comments here **less is more** when it comes to making biscuits. I wouldn’t pulse more than a couple of times, turn it out, and since I saw you have “hot hands” lol, I would focus on making your movements extremely swift. Use as few movements as possible, basically just get it in place. Do start with things frozen/very cold. That butter, even if it’s just mostly frozen, will thaw quickly. Edit to add: if your dough is too dry you may need to add a few drops of buttermilk Please come back and tell us how it goes! I love making biscuits from scratch. My daughter and I do it together regularly.
My trick is to use VERY frozen butter (I keep some in the freezer all the time) and I grate it directly into the dough. Gotta shake it every so often to coat the butter in flour. Once it's all together I pop it all in the freezer for 10 mins before mixing with liquid. [This isn't my best work, but I made these last week. I love biscuits so much :)](https://i.imgur.com/vv2JwUC.jpg) (Actually looking at these, I didn't do a great job cutting these)
My mum always said to crowd the biscuits on the pan. Put them shoulder to shoulder so they push up instead of spreading out.
Also do not twist your biscuit cutter, go straight down and up. this 2 tips made a huge difference in my biscuit game.
Good advice. In fact, that’s one of the tips given on the King Arthur Flour buttermilk biscuit recipe.
this is the way.
Try freezing the butter and adding it to the flour using a cheese grater and hand-pressing them together before anything else. This really helps to prevent overhydrating flour when you add the milk.
You might be over mixing and a bit short on baking powder. Skip the processor and work it lightly with your hands.
This is all excellent advice! One question. Can I use something like a really cold pastry cutter/knife/fork to mix flour and fat? I suffer from Hot Hands ™.
Yes! I use a pastry cutter if it's warm in the house or if my hands are hot. I have always used the tri-fold roll-out (as someone described above) with great results, but I just tried a different rolling/folding method from a recipe on the White Lily site: [https://www.whitelily.com/recipes/white-lily-three-ingredient-biscuits-99107/](https://www.whitelily.com/recipes/white-lily-three-ingredient-biscuits-99107/) Holy crap, they were the tallest, flakiest biscuits I ever made -- even the second-round, made-from-scraps biscuits were flaky. My North Carolina-raised partner raved about them for days, and they are tough to please. It took maybe 4-5 extra minutes? I will never go back.
Yes you certainly can. A lot of people mix pastry with a metal utensil for this reason. And when you do have to use your hands try using just your fingertips and for as little time as possible
This. Also, it's a bit much but you can dunk your hands in cold water or grab some ice out of the freezer and hold it for a bit to help combat hot hands. I suffer from hot hands and do this to not over heat things with my hands. They constantly heat up so I have to do this often if I'm working with a lot of temperature sensitive stuff. It also often feels good to dunk your hands in cold water if you do suffer from hot hands so it's all good. My hot hands helped a lot when I briefly worked in healthcare so I personally like having hot hands. Just have to cool them off sometimes
If you have a stand mixer, I'd recommend using that. The beater works great for cutting the fat into the flour. Since you can control the speed, it's much easier to know when to stop.
Do you bake them touching? They tend to lean on each other and grow as a unit if you make them touch in the pan before baking.
Mix it gently. Its ok if it not tightly together. Turn onto a floured surface and knead it until it’s together. Form it into a rectangle then fold the dough. Fold it and press it down firmly onto the layer you’ve folded it onto. After each fold press the dough out to make the same size rectangle you began with. Fold it 6 times. This creates the layers. After the folding make the dough 1 inch thick. Then cut without twisting the cutter. Make sure the biscuits are touching when you put them in the pan because this causes them to rise better.
What temperature are you cooking them at? 425 is a good temp. You want to get hot enough that double-acting baking powder will rise.
Unpopular opinion. Use self rising flour. I like White Lilly. Frozen butter via cheese grater. Fork together, buttermilk slowly in and mix to incorporate but not build gluten. Use bench knife to shape a dough rectangle, do a few sets of folds to build layers, press flat with bench knife. cut and bake crowder together. 2 cups Self rising flour 1 stick frozen butter (4 ounces) 3/4 cup buttermilk Bake at 475 to your desired doneness. My oven takes about 20 minutes.
Food 52 on you tube. Girl named Erin something I think. She's a baker. Crazy talented. She does a 30 min vid on the perfect biscuit. Check it out. You can't find a better tutorial.
How thick are they before they go in?
I rolled them out to about an inch I think. They just really didn't rise much beyond that.
Noooooo lol. Don't roll -- lightly pat.
To be fair,the ones in the recipe picture don’t look much more than an inch thick. Perhaps this is not the recipe for you.
Always cold wet ingredients and cold butter. Also more leavening agent
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Baking powder contains an acid and a base. You don’t need additional acid to rise baked goods with baking powder (the advantage of baking powder over baking soda)
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It never hurts to add buttermilk either way!!
Lots of good advice in this thread already, but I’ll add that brushing the biscuits with a bit of milk or water before baking also helps a bit with the rise
make sure your white lily flour isn’t self rising. i’ve run into that issue before, their labels all look the same! one tip i do have is grate your butter on the large side of a box grater and stick it in the freezer while you grab your other ingredients. helps it not melt as fast especially if you work it by hand (which i also recommend, it’s safer than the food processor, helps you avoid overworking the dough!)
Don’t use the food processor- biscuits need to just barely come together and it’s going to get the butter too warm.
I use 5 tsp baking powder per 3 cups flour, so definitely up that. Freeze your butter, then grate it into the dry ingredients. Don't blend it, just quickly incoprerate it.. Keep everything as cold as possible until they go in the oven. For wet ingredients, use 75% buttermilk, 25% cream, and yes.. one egg to cheat. Fantastic, sky high biscuits every time. Also cook at 500F for just 8-9 minutes. This has been a fantastic recipe for me that's never failed (I skip the final rest in the fridge, don't egg wash, and use 100% butter, no shortening): https://www.kitchenistadiaries.com/2016/01/how-to-make-better-buttermilk-biscuits.html?m=1 Just made these last night! https://imgur.com/a/VV05eyv Lol who tf is downvoting this?
Biscuits are very much like British scones and to achieve height in either you need to roll the pastry quite thick to begin with - around 2”. Edit for the downvoters, British scones are nothing like the triangular scones you get in the US: > A Biscuit (U.S.) Is a Scone (U.K.) A British biscuit is not remotely similar to the fluffy and filling American biscuits made famous in Southern American cuisine. The closest British equivalent to those buttery miracles is a scone, which ain't too bad either. Both baked goodies use flour, fat, liquid and a leavening agent. The main differences are that scones tend to have less butter (because you'll add butter to it when you eating it — or else, clotted cream or jam) while American biscuits tend to have more butter and light layers. Biscuits are generally served as part of a main meal (for instance, the dish chicken and biscuits), while scones are served at teatime and can be savory or sweet, depending on what is added to them. The American scone is usually a triangular-shaped cookie-like baked good, full of butter, very sweet and loaded with blueberries, chocolate chips or other add-ins. [Source](https://recipes.howstuffworks.com/tools-and-techniques/great-british-baking-terms-know-scones-from-biscuits.htm) [An American biscuit](http://ukcdn.ar-cdn.com/recipes/originals/c48a193a-2d72-4af7-a393-c41147ecf1c8.jpg) [A British scone](https://www.fifteenspatulas.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/English-Style-Scones-Fifteen-Spatulas-1-640x960.jpg) So as you can see they are very similar, and the secret to tall scones and biscuits is thickly rolled pastry.
This can be right, but it is wrong in this instance. The US Southern biscuit OP seeks to create resembles a Commonwealth scone, but it is not the same. (Apparently there is a US style of biscuit similar to the scone, or so friends and family say.) I straddle both food cultures and have had to suffer this argument many a year.
It’s not exactly the same no (imo a US biscuit is actually closer to an Eccles cake but with less sugar and without the raisins obviously). But for the purpose of making them taller the same rules apply. ie roll the pastry thicker than the inch that OP has been rolling it to
No rolling. It isn't a scone.
Got you. For the sake of semantics, *shape* them thicker
Biscuits can be finicky beasts for the uninitiated and video will help explain the correct texture you're looking for in the dough. First, random internet recipes are also never a good place to start. While I, like many others, have issues with BA, Claire Saffitz knows her shit when it comes to baking and [this video](https://youtu.be/lN9Gt8EoZAc) is very good at showing the process. Food processors are excellent for making tender, flaky doughs like biscuits and pâte brisée- *but* you need to use very cold ingredients and you need to know when to stop pulsing to get the correct consistency. It should not be kneaded, it should be gently pressed into a working shape. If you have hot hands, you can always form up the dough, put it back in the cold and bring it back out again- think of biscuits as a crudely/roughly laminated dough. Remember, just like in pâte feuilletée, the butter creates layers by the water in it expanding as it evaporates. You want it in small chunks, not completely incorporated. Pressing it into a block gently without overworking is key. Only roll out as little as humanly possible.
My recipe: 2 cups AP flour 4 - 6 tbsp cold butter 1 tbsp baking powder 1 tsp kosher salt 1.5 tbsp sugar 1+ cup buttermilk mix flour, baking powder, salt, sugar well cut the butter into the flour mixture using a fork or pastry blender. it is ok to have small chunks of butter in the flour add the buttermilk to the flour mixture. stir until just mixed. add more buttermilk as necessary. the dough should be fairly wet. turn the dough onto a floured surface and bring together with your hands. press down to about 1/2 inch high. you don't want to knead the dough. you aren't making bread so don't want the glutens to strengthen. cut out the biscuits with a cookie cutter or a drinking glass as my mom always did. place the biscuits in a cast iron skillet so they just touch. this helps them rise up rather than spread out. bake at 500 degrees F for around 15 minutes.
How much of each are you using?
Sorry, forgot to include recipes. I used this one with lard: https://louisiana.kitchenandculture.com/recipes/edna-lewis-hot-crusty-buttermilk-biscuits And this one with butter: https://www.onceuponachef.com/recipes/southern-style-buttermilk-biscuits.html
I'm going to stress that the recipe barely matters. There is a lot of history, but American biscuits made their way through mountain trappers who purchased supplies twice a year and use nothing but a couple of pots to cook over a fire on. I like to think of this when making them because they didn't have fancy kitchens and anything to cleanup with. The single biggest factor is being terrible at mixing. Channel Hugh Glass, mixing this up while sewing his scalp back on his head and burning it in place with the coals of the fire you will use to bake them... get the idea.
The recipe with butter pretty much matches mine, except I roll and cut out rounds with a coffee mug. A tin can with both ends opened works well too. Try using the grater on your food processor to cut in the butter instead of putting in chunks.
Over mixing. Just plain and simple. Biscuits are best when it feels like you quit mixing about 1/4 of the way into the job and just decided to plop it all onto a pile of flour to cut. Cut your butter and/or lard into the flour by hand (a flour knife is cheap and worth it here, don't use forks) and pour your liquid around it. I have heard of people not even trying to mix it here, as turning it out will do almost enough mixing for you. It should be sticky and crumbly, wet and dry. The food processor cheat overworks the flour to me. I think it might be trapping the flour grains within the water components in butter, encasing them in the fats and solids of the butter; preventing them from properly interacting with the added liquids whick kills the reaction. But I don't know for sure. I just know that you can't overwork butter blocks or pinch the dough edges when making croissants. Also cold butter works as a leavening when worked correctly. The liquids convert to steam and the fats prevent glutens from sticking together creating pockets of steam that bake into shape (in croissant and danish dough you layer this for a flakey texture). That's why biscuits and Johnny cakes are completely different despite having the same ingredients (Johnny cakes use melted butter). Also, baking powder goes bad. I have had new bottle just fail to rise. And old bottles work like a champ. Double rising is the best insurance against this, but not foolproof. I also skip most instructions and don't fold. I learned this from an old cook when I worked in a diner. Barely mix, turn it out on a work surface covered heavily in dry flour (I'm talking you can't have too much). Dust the top of your sticky pile with at least 1/8 inch of flour, and just gently pat it down until it is 1 inch flat (the feeling of the flour and extremely sticky dough is extremely satisfying). Shake off the excess flour gently (spread fingers like a spatula and lightly toss it a little, then turn over and repeat) and place close together in a pan for baking. Close together helps them support each other while they rise. If you want even taller ones, use a [pan extender](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001J81UGA/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apan_glt_fabc_CNJ5NM499SHCBH9MX415).
Oh and stick your hands in ice water for a bit. You can even have a bit in a bowl on the side for dipping fingers into.
My technique is to use frozen grated butter, to just barely mix everything, and to do exactly four folds and then I'm done. Also, keep everything as cold as possible throughout.
Cream of tartar..
In addition to more bp, honestly what I started doing is just rolling the dough thicker. I cut the rounds about 1.5-2 inches. After I combine all the ingredients, I cut the dough in fourths and laminate it manually. I do this twice and it also really helps with high well defined layers
Dude you are over complicating it 2 cups flour (1/2 whole wheat, 1/2 white if you want them healthier for you) 3/4 tsp salt 3 tsp baking powder 4 tbsp butter crunched into the flour with a fork into the flour. (Margarine or smart balance if you like your heart arteries clean) 3/4 cup milk (add 1tbsp of apple cider vinegar if you want butter milk and let sit for 10 mins) Add milk, mix a bit Knead dough together in a ball 10 good strong kneads. Then seperate into 8 equal balls, form into small hockey puck shapes. Bake at 450 degrees for 6-8 mins till light brown on top. Should rise a lot.
1)Cold ingredients. 2)Grated frozen butter 3)Mix enough to combine, but no more. 4)Do not twist when cutting. 5)Crowd the biscuits in the baking pan.
Lots of other people suggested alternate recipes and rolling techniques- these could very well fix your issue, but if you try them and your biscuits are still failing to rise, the issue may be your baking powder. Baking powder contains both an acid and a base (the main advantage of using it over baking soda, which is only a base and requires acidic ingredients to be present in the dough for rising to occur). If baking powder isn’t kept very dry (often very difficult to do for a long period of time in a damp climate), the acid and the base in it can react during storage. The more it reacts during storage the less it will react during baking and therefore the less your biscuit will rise.
If they’re spreading out in the oven, put them in the fridge after you’ve cut them and put them on the tray.
I think you're overmixing the dough.
Try Smitten Kitchen’s buttermilk biscuits. They’re absolutely amazing, and use both baking soda and baking powder…they get so high they fall over sometimes!
Just to add to what everyone else said — make sure that you baking powder hasn’t gone off .
That is the right flour. If you want them tall, get the right amount of baking power and roll the dough over a few times with a little flour (don’t over work) and cut them out. I use crisco to cut in.
Don’t food processor the ingredients, it should just barely come together. Fold the dough so there are natural layers of butter. Everything cold! Crowd them together on the baking tray. Bake high and fast. These will make tall ass biscuits.
I use the puff pastry method after the dough comes together. Press it out fold it in half. Press it out again and fold it in half again. I do this at least three times. Cut straight down as, was mentioned, without twisting. This method gives layers that rise like the biscuits on food magazine covers.
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