Heather says:
These are the simplest, pillow-soft, no-knead biscuits you’ll ever make. I’ve been wanting to try out coconut oil as a substitute for vegetable shortening in my biscuit recipe, but I haven’t been in a biscuit making mood for months. Last night I celebrated meeting a deadline by making country-fried steak and there was left over milk gravy this morning. I couldn’t, in good conscience, let that go to waste, could I? I also experimented by using my food processor (thanks Mom!), that was so fast it was definitely worth washing.
I love that these biscuits only need to be folded. Who likes to knead first thing in the morning? Not this gal.
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Simple Biscuit Recipe Ingredients
- 1/4 cup + 2 TBSP unsalted butter, divided
- 1/4 cup vegetable shortening OR 1/4 cup coconut oil
- 2 cups all-purpose flour + extra for dusting
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 cup buttermilk or only 3/4 cup milk if coconut oil was substituted
Simple Biscuit Recipe Instructions
Preheat the oven to 400F and melt the 2 TBSP of butter. I use a metal measuring cup and melt the butter on a rack in the pre-heating oven, just don’t forget it’s in there.
Whisk together the dry ingredients.
Use either a food processor, a pastry blender, or two forks to cut the butter and coconut oil into the dry mixture. As soon as the mixture resembles crumbs, add the milk and stir until just combined. At this point the dough will be quite sticky, but should hold together.
Heavily flour the work surface and dump the dough from the bowl onto the flour. Flour your hands and pat the dough out into a rough square. Sprinkle the square with flour and fold the dough in half and then half again.
Turn the dough over and pat it out into a square again. Again, sprinkle it with flour, fold it in half, and then half again.
This process creates lots of layers in the dough, but we don’t want to over-work the flour.
Pat the dough out into a rough square until it’s about 3/4″ thick. Use a glass, biscuit or cookie cutter and cut the dough into 2 – 3″ circles. You should get 9 biscuits.
Pour the melted butter into a 9×9 square pan and tilt to evenly coat the bottom. One at a time place the biscuits into the pan and then flip the biscuit over so both sides are buttered. Your 9 biscuits will rise to fill the pan while baking.
Bake for 12 – 15 minutes.
Remove from the oven and carefully invert the pan to dump out the biscuits, I just put a cutting board on top of the pan and then flip to avoid dropping any.
Enjoy! Oh and added bonus? None of that filmy mouth feel you get with the canned kind.
Oh yeah! Thanks to your first biscuit recipe I don't buy the canned stuff anymore.
This is extremely close to the first one, I just wanted to update the pictures, share it with people who weren't subscribed back in '07 and note that coconut oil works very well.
nom nom nom!
Holy cow, I love this post! Thanks so much for the tip on melting butter. I don't have a microwave and am loathe to dirty a pot just to melt some butter. The biscuits look fabulous. I've been trying out different recipes and this looks like it might be a winner. I've also been wondering about coconut oil; it's supposed to have so many great nutritional values. Did you find that using coconut oil altered the taste of the biscuits at all? Also, any suggestions on where to buy the oil?
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In all honesty, I cannot taste the coconut and neither could my husband. I use coconut oil for the lack of trans fats.
If you already have coconut oil on hand you aren't out much.
My thoughts, try it once, not on company and decide.
These look good! I have all the ingredients and I am thinking about actually making them for dinner tonight! My husband just bought us a couple of cast iron skillets and I know he's dying for some fried chicken – these seem like they'd go well with that. Maybe I'll whip up some mashed potatoes, too. Thanks for the inspiration!
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I really hope you like them. The babysitter was happy with them this morning.
We use coconut oil, but in biscuits usually use just butter or a combo of butter & palm oil. My coconut oil has a slight coconutty taste that is off-putting in some foods so I don't use it as often as I'd like.
Are you doing these in your demo today?(That is today, isn't it? I'm not the best keeping-track-of-things person just now)
If I didn't miss it, best wishes for all to go well with that. (Go, Heather!)
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I cannot taste the coconut oil. No, today I am doing roasted potatoes, roasted broccoli. And lemon rosemary salmon all on one sheet pan as the workshop is on cooking for one or two.
That sounds good — and I'll be needing recipes for one in the near future.
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I'm betting the coconut oil varies by brand. I honestly have only purchased the cheap kind as the frou-frou store is way on the other end of town from me.
And as far as everything else, you are in my thoughts.
Thanks for biscuit recipe. It looks good.
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nothing like a homemade biscuit. i was gonna be blogging about that soon too…
Blog it anyway we can compare notes
You should have seen how many different recipes I experimented with while trying to find this recipe. Some were ok, but some were just this side of edible.
I tried these yesterday and they were so easy to make. They tasted wonderful too, not a hit of coconut. And I love how the magically separate in the middle. Sweet!
What difference does non-salted butter make in the recipe? Could you use butter with salt?
Peg, just reduce the salt by a pinch. The actual conversion is to reduce the salt by 1/4 tsp for each stick of butter used. You're not quite using a stick of butter in this recipe, only 6 TBSP total.
Just reduce the salt by a pinch and it will be fine. For every stick of butter used in a recipe reduce the salt by 1/4 teaspoon.
Absolutely, just reduce the amount of salt you use in the recipe a little. Use about 3/4 of a tsp instead of a full.
It is just impossible to look at your pictures when it is not time to dinner. The stomach is eager to meet food. I had to dine first of all to read your article calmly. I would like to thank you for your articles. They are so useful for women. There are so many interesting receipts. I will try to cake your biscuit with great pleasure, it seems to be simple. I think that my family members will be happy to try something new.
Oh Yeah! Now all you need a little bit of creamed honey and you've got a meal or in my case an afternoon snack! HAHA
I noticed there is one teaspoon of salt in this recipe. Couldn't I leave this 1 teaspoon of salt OUT & then still use salted butter? TX
Hey! There is no sugar in the ingredients list? Did you forget to add or what?
There is no sugar in the recipe.
This sounds good. I want to learn to make good biscuits. I will give this a try.
Hello! I am Brazilian and I love cooking. I loved this recipe. Can I post this recipe on my blog (Receitas Demais)? Thanks a lot.
I actually made a half recipe this afternoon. I wasn't going to bake until the evening so I put the biscuits in the refrigerator… Big mistake! They didn't raise when I baked them later. I should have let them warm to room temperature before baking.
I get comments on my biscuits often. I use 2 cups flour, 3 teaspoons of baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar, 1/2 cup shortening (Crisco, butter flavored) 2/3 cup of milk. Sift flour, baking powder, salt and cream of tartar together. Cut in shortening using a pastry cutter, until like coarse crumbs. Make a well in the flour mixture. Add milk and stir until dough follows fork around. Turn out onto a floured board and knead about 10 times ( takes 2 -3 minutes). Roll out with a rolling pin, cut with a biscuit cutter and pop in the oven at 450 for 10-12 minutes. Takes less than 30 minutes, start to finish.
I made a half recipe and used the dough for pizza crust. I didn’t even need the shortening! A tablespoon more butter and I was good to go. Fantastic recipe =)
OMG! Wonderful receipt. It worked great and was very fast. Thank you. Lorri