Everything Biscuits – Quick and Easy Recipe
What would make tender flaky biscuits even more delicious? Everyone’s favorite bagel seasoning! Enjoy these Everything Biscuits warm from the oven, with a smear of cream cheese, as the perfect vehicle for a savory egg sandwich, or as is. Either way, breakfast just got a whole lot better!
But first, a few notes on making perfect biscuits:
1. COLD butter is key!
When making biscuits and other flaky pastries, you will often see recipes call for cold butter. When cold butter is added to the flour mixture, it is broken down into small solid pieces. Then, when the biscuits are baking in the oven, those little solid butter pieces melt and create little “pockets” throughout the dough. When the water in the butter melts, steam is released in those pockets during the baking process, creating those beautiful, flaky layers. Softened or melted butter, on the other hand, would just be dispersed and incorporated evenly throughout the dry ingredients, which really means no pockets, which really really means no flaky biscuits. Got it? Good.
2. No buttermilk? No problem.
My biggest frustration is buying an ingredient I need for one specific recipe, never using it again, and eventually throwing it away. For me, that ingredient is buttermilk. For years, I’ve been making my own buttermilk by combining two ingredients that I usually already have in my kitchen anyway: milk and vinegar. Yup, it is that simple. But mixing 1 cup of milk with 1 tablespoon of vinegar (white or apple cider works) you end up with a easy-peasy buttermilk substitute. So, wether you forgot to buy buttermilk while grocery shopping, or you’re like me and don’t really use it, fret not, and make your own.
3. Don’t over-mix the dough.
The key to light tender biscuits? Avoid over-mixing/overworking the dough. Mixing flour with liquids, as is done in this recipe, activates the gluten proteins in the wheat flour, and it’s actually these proteins that give baked goods their structure. BUT, over-mixing leads to a very strong gluten protein network, which therefore can lead to baked goods that are tough, gummy, or unpleasantly chewy. That’s actually why we knead dough for a while when making bread from scratch – to form a sturdier tough loaf that doesn’t easily crumble or fall apart. Hence, If you stir the dough too much, the biscuits will be hard and tough. So, once you add the buttermilk, stir until the dough just comes together and is cohesive enough to handle to avoid over-mixing.
4. Layer up!
In the recipe below, you’ll see one repetitive step: you will need to flatten and fold the dough onto itself not once, not twice, not 7 times, but 10 times! Why? Although it seems redundant, it’s definitely necessary. You’ll definitely want to take the time to do this to create all those lovely layers that make a biscuit like no other.
Ok, now that we got that out of the way, let’s get to the good part. The recipe! Try these biscuits on a slow morning when you want some freshly baked lovin’ from the oven. I hope they are EVERYTHING and more!
Everything Biscuits
Equipment
- Pastry cutter (optional)
- Pastry brush
Ingredients
- ⅔ cup milk, plus more for brushing biscuit tops or buttermilk
- ½ tbsp white or apple cider vinegar (omit if using buttermilk)
- 1 ½ cups flour all-purpose
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 6 tbsp butter (cold, cubed)
- 1-2 tbsp everything bagel seasoning
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400° F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
- Combine the milk and vinegar. Gently stir and set aside. This will allow the milk to slightly curdle, giving it a buttermilk-like texture and taste.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
- Add the cold cubed butter to the flour mixture. Using a pastry cutter, or your fingers, cut the butter into the flour until it resembles pea-sized crumbs.
- Add in the milk/vinegar mixture, or buttermilk, and stir until the mixture just comes together. Do not overmix.
- Turn the dough out onto a floured suface. Gently work the dough with your hands until it comes together into a cohesive mass. If the dough is too sticky, add flour until it is manageable.
- Still using your hands, flatten the dough out into a rectangle, about 1-inch thick. Fold the dough onto itself, then flatten it out again and fold again. Repeat about 10 times. This creates the layers of the biscuits.
- Form the dough into a 1-inch thick rectangle again. Cut the rectangle in half length wise, then cut each half in thirds, to create 6 even-sized biscuits.
- Transfer biscuits to prepared baking sheet. Brush the top of each biscuit with additional milk or buttermilk, then sprinkle everything bagel seasoning on top.
- Bake for for 17-18 minutes, or until golden brown. Serve warm.