How to Make the Perfect Biscuits at Home
Professional chef Adrienne Cheatham demonstrates how to make the best biscuits at home. Follow her guide to get your biscuits fluffy but crisp and full of flavor.Check out Adrienne's Flaky Layered Biscuit recipe!Yield: serves 4-8Ingredients: 2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted butter, frozen2 cups (280g) all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting2 cups (240g) Wondra Flour¼ cup (50g) granulated sugar4 tsp. Baking powder1 tsp. Baking soda2 ½ tsp. Kosher salt2 cups buttermilk, chilled2 Tbsp. unsalted butter, softened to room temperature2 Tbsp. HoneyFlaky Sea SaltPreparation: Making biscuits: Grate the butter on the large holes of a box grater or with the shredding disk of a food processor. Transfer to a freezer-safe container and freeze or refrigerate before proceeding.In a large bowl, mix the all-purpose flour, Wondra, granulated sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt to combine. Add the frozen butter and toss with your fingers to make sure each piece is coated well (work quickly so that the butter doesn’t warm up too much!). With a silicone spatula, fold in the buttermilk until just combined.Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured piece of parchment paper, wax paper or foil (it will help with moving it around later). Gently press and pat the dough together and roll it out to an even rectangle about 12 x 18 inches. Transfer the dough on the parchment to a baking sheet and refrigerate for 15 minutes.Slide the parchment paper and dough back onto a flat work surface with the long side closest to you. Lightly dust the top of the dough with a pinch of flour, then fold the two short sides into the center until they are touching )like a set of double doors), and then fold the left side on top of the right (like a closed book).Center the folded dough on your parchment paper and roll the dough out to 12 x 18-inch rectangle, again rubbing flour on your rolling pin if the dough sticks. Repeat the book folds again, then roll the dough this time to a 12-inch square. Transfer the dough back to the baking sheet and refrigerate for 20 minutes. Preheat the oven to 425 F with a rack in the center position. Slide the dough back onto your work surface and use a sharp knife to cut the dough into approximately 2-inch squares. Line the baking sheet with a new piece of parchment paper and line up the biscuit dough squares on the baking sheet, spaced about an inch apart. Return the sheet to the refrigerator and chill the biscuits for another 10 minutes before baking.Place the baking sheet on the center rack and bake for about 20 minutes, rotating once halfway through, until the biscuits are puffed and deeply golden. In a small bowl, whisk the softened butter and honey. Remove the biscuits from the oven and brush with honey butter. Sprinkle with flaky sea salt.Let cool.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Hi, I'm Adrienne Cheatham.
00:01I'm a professional chef, and today I'm gonna show you
00:04how to make the best biscuits at home.
00:07We are talking crispy, fluffy, airy, delicious,
00:13and not those lifeless, pale blobs of dough.
00:16This is Biscuits 101.
00:20To me, the perfect biscuit is like croissant's
00:23thicker cousin.
00:24It's denser and thicker on the inside,
00:26but it still has that beautiful shattering crust
00:29on the outside.
00:30There are very few ingredients, very few steps.
00:33It's just a matter of the technique
00:35that you use to make them.
00:39The most important thing when you're making biscuits
00:42is keep it cold.
00:44Keep your fat as cold as possible,
00:47so it doesn't melt and soak into the flour
00:49and make your biscuits heavy.
00:51The first thing we're gonna do is grate butter
00:54on a box grater.
00:55You can't grate butter once it's soft,
00:57so it's best to just throw it in the freezer
00:59the night before.
01:01It is rock hard.
01:02You do wanna work quickly,
01:05so you don't let your butter heat up.
01:06Another important part of why we keep the butter so cold
01:10is because we're baking our biscuits at 425.
01:13You don't wanna give the butter a chance to slowly melt
01:17while it's starting to bake.
01:18You wanna shock it with heat so that right away,
01:23the water content of the butter evaporates,
01:26and that's what gives you the lift inside the biscuits.
01:29I'm using the large holes on the box grater
01:32because I want big, flat, long pieces of butter.
01:36They really give you a more defined pocket of air
01:39in your biscuits.
01:41The butter is grated.
01:42I'm gonna pop it in the freezer
01:43so it stays really, really cold.
01:45So now I'm gonna mix all of my dry ingredients.
01:48All-purpose flour, regular, degular-ass flour,
01:52same that you'll get anywhere.
01:53Wonder flour.
01:54The cool thing about wonder flour
01:56is that it is a pre-gelatinized starch.
01:59That means the starch has actually been kind of cooked,
02:03so starch molecules swell up,
02:05and this flour has been cooked so that it swells up,
02:08and then they stop that process.
02:10So it's better to mix with cold ingredients.
02:14It also takes shorter of a cooking process
02:16because you don't have to go through the whole swelling
02:19and cooking of the starch molecule,
02:21and it has a little bit lower protein,
02:24which means lower gluten,
02:26which means your biscuits will be
02:27a little fluffier and lighter
02:29because you don't have as many of the gluten strands
02:32giving you that chew that you would get
02:34using all-AP flour.
02:36Sugar.
02:37You need a little bit of dimension and flavor,
02:39so salt and sugar kind of balance that out.
02:42It also helps with the browning process
02:45when the biscuits are baking later.
02:47Baking powder and baking soda.
02:49We're using two leavening agents
02:52to get maximum lift in these biscuits.
02:54I do like to use a whisk with the dry ingredients
02:57because it just really helps get everything incorporated
03:00and dispersed very thoroughly.
03:02Now we add our frozen butter.
03:04I am just going to toss with the flour
03:07and the dry ingredients
03:09because I really want each little shard of butter
03:12to be coated in the flour mixture,
03:15so that way we have these beautiful
03:18little individual pieces of butter
03:20that will give us such nice flavor
03:23and such nice lift in our biscuits.
03:26So I'm just lifting from the bottom
03:28and letting the butter and flour fall through my fingers.
03:31I'm not pressing it or packing it.
03:34So this is how it should look.
03:36You want to see these beautiful little curls of butter
03:38coated thoroughly in the dry ingredients.
03:41This will also help keep them separate
03:43when we add our wet ingredients.
03:45It's kind of like breading a piece of chicken to fry it.
03:48It'll have its own little coating,
03:50so that way it'll stay separate from everything else.
03:52You don't need to overwork this.
03:54You just want to do it a few times
03:56until you see all the butter is coated
03:59and you should be good to move on to the next step.
04:01So buttermilk is a little bit acidic.
04:03It gives you a nice tangy flavor.
04:06We have a lot of fat in the dough with the butter,
04:09so the buttermilk will provide us
04:11with a little bit of tart tanginess
04:13to kind of balance out the flavor of the biscuit.
04:16So at this point, I am using a spatula.
04:18I don't want to get in there with my hands
04:20because it'll take me so long
04:22to clean everything off my hands
04:24that I will warm up the butter in the process.
04:26I'm just barely folding everything together
04:29with this silicone spatula,
04:31going around the edge and folding it through
04:34just to kind of disperse the buttermilk
04:36into the ingredients.
04:42I have a piece of parchment paper here on the board
04:44on the work surface
04:45because I don't want to touch the dough too much.
04:48So putting the parchment paper down
04:51and adding the ingredients in to press it into a rectangle
04:55will help me move it to put it into the refrigerator
04:59without having to like fumble it and mess it all up
05:02once I've made this nice rectangle.
05:04So the ingredients are still very separate-ish.
05:09Buttermilk will slowly hydrate the flour,
05:12but you don't want to start with a dough
05:15that's too wet.
05:16I'm not really kneading it.
05:18We want to keep it in these nice shards
05:20that are just barely coated in flour
05:24and just barely held together with buttermilk.
05:27Now, this part does get dangerous.
05:29My hot hands are touching this dough.
05:32So I'm working quickly just to form it into a rectangle.
05:37I'm just barely pressing everything together.
05:40If you feel it getting sticky,
05:42you can just put a little flour on your hands
05:44and I'm just going to kind of guide it with one hand
05:48and make a nice clean edge with the other.
05:51Boom, there we go.
05:52Now I'm gonna transfer this to a sheet tray with the paper.
05:55All I have to do is pull it
05:57and this is gonna go back into the refrigerator
05:59to stay nice and cold.
06:01This dough is so pretty.
06:03This is kind of the fun part,
06:04but again, you have to work fast
06:06because you want to keep this cold.
06:08Cold is key.
06:10I kind of like to use the croissant method
06:12where you make a book fold.
06:14The main point is that you're creating layers.
06:17Take one side and fold it into the center.
06:20Take the other side and fold it into the center
06:25so that they're meeting in the middle.
06:27Now, I'm gonna fold it over onto itself.
06:30So I have four layers here.
06:32If I were in like a super fine dining restaurant,
06:34maybe I would have to clean up the edges a little bit,
06:37but I kind of like it like this.
06:39I'm just gonna give it a little bit more flour
06:41just to keep the butter from sticking
06:43and I'm going to rotate it
06:46because now we're gonna roll it back
06:48into a rectangle that was about the same size.
06:51We're going for about 12 to 18 inches.
06:54Doesn't have to be perfect.
06:56Don't worry.
06:57Don't bust out the measuring tape.
06:58The only real way to mess this up is to let it get too hot.
07:02So if your kitchen is really hot,
07:05work a little faster and just pop it back in the fridge
07:08if you need to.
07:09It's really coming together.
07:11The buttermilk is hydrating all of the ingredients.
07:14We're gonna do the fold one more time.
07:16I can feel my dough getting soft,
07:18which means it is getting a little bit warm.
07:20So I'm gonna work pretty quickly here
07:23and this is gonna be the last time that I roll this out.
07:27So I'm just gonna flip it.
07:28If you see the front here, you can see the layers
07:31and there's more layers on the inside
07:33that have just been rolled out.
07:34This is really gonna help us get nice lift
07:37and nice definition.
07:38More folds mean more layers,
07:40which means more flakiness in your biscuit.
07:42But if you're sacrificing cold for layers,
07:46it's not worth it.
07:47I've really found that twice is kind of the sweet spot
07:49between getting the lift in the layers that I want,
07:52but also keeping the identity and integrity
07:55of what a biscuit should be.
07:56I have the dough in a square.
07:58We don't need to do the rectangle again.
08:00Lift this up, put it back on the tray
08:02and get it cold for about 20 minutes in the fridge
08:05until we cut and bake.
08:07Boom.
08:09Booyah.
08:10Look at that beautiful biscuit dough.
08:13It is amazing.
08:14You can use a biscuit cutter.
08:15You can use a glass.
08:17However, a lot of them are not sharp enough.
08:19So they pinch the dough as you're cutting down.
08:22It won't let the dough rise.
08:24It'll kind of like squish it down on the sides.
08:27You also get waste cutting circles out of a square.
08:30So I'm gonna cut this into about two inches
08:34and I'm using a sharp knife
08:36so that way it doesn't pinch the dough.
08:37It just goes straight down.
08:39So I particularly love cutting my biscuits into squares
08:43because I don't know about you,
08:45but I love like the corners of lasagna.
08:48I like all those crispy edges
08:50and the browning and all that.
08:52So I like doing square biscuits
08:54because you get those corners that are a little crunchier.
08:57You get all the sides and everybody gets that goodness.
09:00So transfer these beautiful biscuits
09:04to a parchment lined baking tray about an inch apart.
09:09I want to keep this cold.
09:10If they feel like they are warming up,
09:12go ahead and pop them in the fridge or the freezer,
09:15take care of the rest of your biscuits
09:17and then go ahead and bake.
09:18We're starting at 425
09:21and it's best if you have a convection oven
09:23to turn that on because you really want the air to circulate
09:26and be even so you don't get hot spots in your oven
09:30where the butter melts on some,
09:32but really puffs on the others.
09:34Now we will get these in the oven.
09:36Your biscuits should take about 20 minutes,
09:39but if your oven is really powerful,
09:41your convection fan is blowing like crazy,
09:43it might be closer to 15 minutes.
09:45It might be longer to 25.
09:47So just keep an eye on it.
09:49When you start to smell them,
09:51that's when you know you're getting close.
09:53When they have that beautiful golden crust,
09:55go ahead and pull them out.
09:56One thing you do not want to do
09:59is open your oven door to check.
10:01The temperature dropping will stop that rising process
10:05and it'll collapse.
10:09Bonus points.
10:10We're gonna make a little bit of honey butter
10:12to brush onto our biscuits.
10:14Totally optional.
10:15I'm using two tablespoons of butter,
10:17about two tablespoons of honey.
10:19Don't get me wrong,
10:19the biscuits are delicious on their own,
10:21but adding the honey butter on top
10:23gives it another dimension of depth of flavor.
10:27A sweetness to offset the saltiness.
10:29This butter is just nice soft at room temperature
10:33and you can see they just stir together really nicely.
10:36This is perfect.
10:37You don't want it to be too cold
10:40because you won't be able to get the brush in there
10:42to get it on top of the biscuits
10:44and you don't want it to be too soft
10:45because then it's melted and the fat
10:47and the liquid and the butter separate.
10:49So this is still fully emulsified, homogenous.
10:53You'll get nice even coating on your biscuits.
10:55This is exactly where you want it to be.
11:00The moment we have all been waiting for.
11:02A lot of people will pull the biscuits
11:04a little bit too early
11:06while they're still a little bit blonde.
11:08I like my biscuits to be just past that golden brown
11:13and go a little bit deeper
11:14because you're really getting more depth of flavor.
11:17You're getting more caramelization.
11:18You're getting crispier corners
11:20and you're also setting those layers in between.
11:23So while they are still hot,
11:25I'm gonna brush some of this honey butter on them
11:28to kind of glaze the tops of these beautiful biscuits.
11:33So on top of the honey butter,
11:35just a little bit of flaky sea salt.
11:38You get crunch from the salt.
11:39You also get these little pops of salinity
11:42that contrasts so nicely
11:44with the honey butter brushed on top.
11:46This is how you show somebody you really care.
11:48Okay, hurry up and cool down so I can eat you.
11:52We are going to plate them.
11:53How do you like that?
11:54What if I gave you like a pyramid of biscuits?
11:56Would you be happy?
11:57You can see how the bottom is not burned,
12:00but it is deeply golden and crusty.
12:02So we're gonna get a lot of texture from all of this
12:05and a lot of flavor from everything that we put into it.
12:11Oh my God.
12:13You get a little bit of the tang from the buttermilk.
12:16You get sweetness.
12:18You get a little bit of seasoned like saltiness
12:21to balance that out.
12:22But above all, you get this soft, fluffy interior
12:27and this absolutely amazing crunch on the outside.
12:31Making biscuits can seem a little daunting at first,
12:34but it is very simple.
12:36So if you just pay attention to the details
12:38and a couple little tricks and tips and just follow them,
12:42you will have an amazing outcome every time.