How To Make Your Own Homemade Biscuits
Biscuits are such a versatile food in our home. From the traditional biscuits and gravy (one of the hubby’s favorites), smothered in jelly, breakfast sandwiches, and the many ways to use the dough in other forms such as in chicken and dumplings, pot pie, casseroles… the list is endless. This homemade biscuits recipe is delicious, flaky and buttery!
Disclaimer
This post contains affiliate links. This means we may earn a commission should you chose to sign up for a program or make a purchase using these links. There is no added cost to you but your purchase through these links helps support our content! Not to worry- I truly believe in and/or use everything I promote!
We also utilize advertisements on many of our articles. This is simply a way to help support all the work we do here at Wild N Free Farms, without adding any extra cost to our readers. Check out our disclaimer and disclosure page for more details.
Why You Should Ditch Store Bought Biscuits and Mixes
The Cost
One of the first reasons, and one everyone can relate to these days, the price. A Pillsbury Grands Biscuits, 8 ct, has climbed up to $3 here at the local Walmart. That’s $0.38 per biscuit. Making them at home can run your biscuit cost anywhere from $0.05 to $0.12 a biscuit, depending on where you source your pantry staples. May not seem like a big savings when you’re talking in cents, but that’s at least triple the price for store bought and can add up fast with this versatile food.
Horrible Ingredients
My biggest reason for switching to homemade was the ingredients. I have found that my family doesn’t have the adverse reactions when we consume organic pure grains. The stomach upset and inflammation occurs almost every time we consume over processed grains from store bough products. Plus I did a little glance at the ingredients list of store bought biscuits and had some questions. After doing research and getting those questions answered, I will never buy store bought again.
The Truth About Fake Ingredients
Enriched Bleached Flour
Whenever you see anything that says “enriched”, just stay clear. This little word here means so much in the context of food and how it’s processed. The grains used to make flour are actually loaded with nutrients, including vitamins, minerals, fiber and phytonutrients. However, when they go through the rigid milling, processing, and bleaching, literally ALL of these nutrients are stripped out. It’s these harsh mechanical and chemical mechanisms that cause so many issues in what was once a healthy ingredient.
They call it “enriched” flour because they enriched the final product with nutrients. Sounds great right?! Until you realize that over 20 nutrients are stripped from the original grain and only iron, B1, B2, B3, and B9 are put back. What’s worse is that they are put back via a synthetic form produced in a laboratory. These refined and enriched grains in processed food is metabolized like pure sugar in your body. This leads to health issues such as diabetes, obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure, and even cancer due.
Every wonder why your flour is so white when the original plant is more of a brown color? Well that’s due to the wonders of processing yet again. After the flour goes through its rigorous milling process, it is then BLEACHED. This bleaching uses things like benzoyl peroxide or chlorine gas to give it a beautiful white color. Why you ask? Simply because it looks pretty. These bleaching agents don’t come without their own set of side effects though. They increase your risk for type 2 diabetes, obesity, chronic inflammation, asthma, cardiovascular disease, cancer, constipation and many others depending on which bleaching agent is used.
I encourage you to switch your flour product to an organic, unbleached, unenriched, whole wheat or wheat flour. You may be surprised by the beneficial health implications from switching.
Soybean Oil
When I see soy anything on a food label I immediately put it back. Soybean is a huge GMO crop and is sprayed so heavily with glyphosate loaded herbicides, that harmful levels have been found in finished products on the shelves. This chemical alone has been reported to increase the risk of cancer, endocrine-disruption, celiac disease, autism, leaky-gut syndrome and have a negative effect on red blood cells. Soy has also been shown to raise serum estrogen levels in humans, potentially causing thyroid disorders, male infertility and breast cancer.
Aluminum Loaded Baking Powder
Excess aluminum in the body has been shown to have adverse effects on the reproductive system and neurological health. Two systems that come with a lot of health conditions that often go undiagnosed in the medical community. Believe it or not, the FDA has decided that it’s safe to consume aluminum, as long as it stays under the daily intake value of 10mg/day. They chalk this up to the fact that aluminum is found in nature sourced foods such as fruits, veggies and meats. However, they have no distinction between natural sources and those created in a lab and added to processed foods simply for a chemical reaction that can easily be achieved without it.
Furthermore, the body has no physiologic need for aluminum. Due to its size and electric charge, it’s actually known to compete with several essential elements, such as magnesium, calcium, and iron. I could go on and on down this aluminum filled rabbit role with you, but for this article, lets just stick with aluminum-free baking powders.
Annatto
This ingredient is a controversial one. It is a food dye derived from the seeds of a achiote tree in South America. My research turned up dry, other than articles and claims that the achiote tree actually had some medicinal benefits that have been used for centuries by tribes.
However, I then came across claims of annatto food dyes causing gastrointestinal issues, such as irritable bowel syndrome. Additionally, some mothers claim that this particular food dye causes hyperactivity, eczema, hives, irritability and excessive tantrums in their children. I believe the reason I couldn’t find any peer-reviewed or research articles on these claims is because annatto is considered a “natural” food additive. The FDA believes that anything that comes from a natural source doesn’t need to scrutinized, no matter how much chemical or mechanical alteration is done by man.
Natural & Artificial Flavors
These two things are found in almost every processed food on the shelf these days. “Artificial flavors” on a food label could be any combination of chemicals in order to mimic a flavor the product wishes to convey, without having to use the actual food. For instance, for a strawberry beer, the manufacture would make more money on the product if they used chemicals that mimic the taste of strawberry, rather than using a real strawberry. These artificial flavors come from a list of 1,300 FDA approved chemicals that include things like petroleum or diacetyl (a chemical used to mimic that “buttery” flavor and has been shown to cause lung disease).
“Natural flavors” are not any better. The FDA says these flavors must come from a natural source, such as fruits or animal sources. However, they can become highly processed and contain many chemical additions before the finished product hits the shelves, making their chemical makeup and health repercussions not much different than artificial flavors.
I’m sure by now you’re ready to purge your pantry and fridge and get to making those homemade biscuits!
What You’ll Need For Homemade Biscuits
The ingredients to this homemade biscuit recipe is super simple and stuff you most likely, or should, have on hand!
Ingredients:
- Organic, unbleached flour
- Aluminum-free baking powder
- Salt
- Organic, grass-fed cream
- Organic, grass-fed milk
- Organic, grass-fed butter
- Cooking spray
How To Make Homemade Biscuits
1)In a large mixing bowl or Stand Mixer combine your flour, baking powder and salt. Stir to combine before adding your cream and milk.
The cream is totally optional on this and can be substituted for just milk without much change to the texture.
Store your butter in the freezer over night or for a few hours before. While it does make it easier having extremely cold butter that won’t melt too quickly as you’re mixing, if you forget to do this step beforehand (as I often do), refrigerator temp butter will work fine. Just try not to use any softened butter.
2) Chop up your butter into small chunks. Add a few chunks at a time between kneading the dough.
This step really ensures that flaky texture and buttery taste you want in a good biscuit. If you have a dough cutter, great, use that! I find that my hands work just fine! I squeeze the butter with each knead to try and break it up further and incorporate it into the dough as much as I can.
3) Knead the dough until the butter is incorporated, but not too much that the butter begins to melt. Wrap the dough in parchment or plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour, or freeze for 1/2 a hour.
4) Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F, spray a baking sheet with cooking spray.
5) On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to 1″ thickness. Use a round cookie cutter, canning lid, or cut out circles with a knife. Take each biscuit and roll it in your hand like a disc, your thumb on the top and index on the bottom, both in the center of the biscuit. Spin the biscuit in your hand, pushing in the sides as you go, kind of like a pizza but instead of out, you want to squish it in. This makes a plump biscuit and adds to that flakiness.
6) Lay your biscuits on the sprayed sheet and bake in the oven for 15-18 minutes, depending on how plump you make them
Storing Homemade Biscuits
This recipe is a great one for making in bulk. Have yourself a biscuit day and fill your freezer! Simply follow the steps above, however, do not cook your biscuits.
Once you’ve shaped your biscuits, place on a parchment lined baking sheet and place in the freezer for about an hour, or until the biscuits become hard. After this flash freeze, place the frozen biscuits in a zip lock or vacuum seal bag, divided into the appropriate proportions for your families needs.
There’s really no need to even thaw these biscuits before cooking, just simply increase your time in the oven by 5 minutes.
If you decided to freeze breakfast meals with this recipe, such as sandwiches or casseroles, it would be best to cook the biscuits before freezing and simply reheat the dish.
Easy Homemade Biscuits
Ingredients
- 2 Cups Organic Flour
- 2 Tbsp Baking Powder Aluminum free
- 1 Tsp Salt
- 1/4 Cup Heavy Cream Can be substituted for 1/4 c milk or buttermilk
- 3/4 Cup Grass-fed, Organic Milk
- 1/2 Cup Grass-fed, Organic Butter Frozen or EXTREMELY cold
Instructions
- Combine the flour, baking powder, salt and milk and/or cream. Combine until a dough ball forms.
- Chop the frozen butter into small chunks and begin to combine to dough ball a little bit at a time. Knead dough between each addition to incorporate the chunks and create flaky layers.
- Wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour or freeze for half an hour.
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F and spray a baking sheet with cooking oil.
- Roll out dough onto a lightly floured surface until an inch thick. Cut out circles and fluff up each biscuit using the method mentioned above.
- Bake for 15-18 minutes until lightly browned.
Your One Stop For Sourdough
Farm To Table recipes you’ll love!
Want More Homestead Inspired Recipes?
Check out our Recipe Index for delicious creations!
