Light and Tender Cream Biscuits Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to soft biscuits? ›

"Pinch the flour and fat together like you're snapping your fingers," he explains. This creates thin sheets of butter that create puff pastry-like layers in your biscuits. For soft and fluffy biscuits, blend the liquid and dry ingredients just until the dough "resembles cottage cheese," Sonoskus says.

The two keys to success in making the best biscuits are handling the dough as little as possible as well as using very cold solid fat (butter, shortening, or lard) and cold liquid.

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.

For light and fluffy biscuits, steer clear of any flour made from 100% hard red wheat; this style is relatively low in starch and high in protein, readily forming gluten in a high-moisture dough. That's great when it comes to making chewy breads and pasta, but bad news for light and tender biscuits.

So what's the final verdict? Butter is the winner here. The butter biscuits were moister with that wonderful butter taste and melt-in-your mouth texture. I'd be curious to test out substituting half or just two tablespoons of the butter with shortening to see if you get the best of both.

White wheat in general is around 9-12% protein, while the hard reds are 11-15%. As far as brands of flour, White Lily “all-purpose” flour has been my go-to for biscuit making. It's a soft red winter wheat, and the low protein and low gluten content keep biscuits from becoming too dense.

The White Lily self-rising flour far outperformed the store brand self-rising flour and the self-rising substitute. I knew even as I was rolling out that soft, pliable dough that the White Lily biscuits were definitely going to be different from the others.

Butter enriches baked goods by contributing tenderness and moistness, and is responsible for the flakiness in biscuits, pie crusts, and puff pastry. Because of its superior flavor, most bakers select unsalted butter over all other fats for use in baking.

Buttermilk can produce better results when baking biscuits than using regular milk or cream. Buttermilk is acidic and when it is combined with baking soda, it creates a chemical reaction that produces carbon dioxide gas, which causes the dough to rise and gives the biscuits a light and flaky texture.

Are biscuits better with buttermilk or milk? ›

Buttermilk adds a nice tang to the biscuit flavor and helps them rise better.

But if you chill your pan of biscuits in the fridge before baking, not only will the gluten relax (yielding more tender biscuits), the butter will harden up. And the longer it takes the butter to melt as the biscuits bake, the more chance they have to rise high and maintain their shape. So, chill... and chill.

Keep the oven hot.

Be sure your oven is fully preheated (depending on your recipe, you'll be looking at a temperature between 425 and 475 degrees Fahrenheit), and use an oven thermometer to make sure the temperature inside the oven is the same as the one the oven display says.

Turn the dough out onto a well-floured surface and pat it down into a rough rectangle, about an inch thick. Fold it over and gently pat it down again. Repeat two more times. Cover the dough loosely with a kitchen towel and allow it to rest for 30 minutes.

Basically, you pat the dough out into a rectangle, then fold it up into thirds (like you're folding a letter to put in an envelope), then repeat that process. This trick applies to scones too. This step ensures your biscuits will bake up tall, with distinct layers of flaky goodness.

We've got a clever trick that will keep your biscuits soft and chewy for longer. The solution is as simple as putting the biscuits in an airtight jar along with a small piece of bread (no more than half a slice). If you don't have an airtight jar, a zip-lock bag also works well.

Be sure to mix the dough just until it comes together and avoid kneading or overworking the dough. Overbaking: Biscuits can become dry and hard if they are overbaked. Follow the baking instructions on the store-bought mix and be sure to check the biscuits a few min.

Microwaving them. If you cover your cookies with a wet paper towel and nuke them for a few seconds, they should soften up enough to eat.