Quick and Easy Drop Biscuits Recipe (2024)

  • Pastries
  • Sides

Just 25 minutes and five ingredients stand between you and these fluffy, tender biscuits.

By

Marissa Sertich Velie

Quick and Easy Drop Biscuits Recipe (1)

Marissa Sertich Velie

Marissa Sertich Velie is a pastry chef who worked in restaurants, writes, and graduated from the Culinary Institute of America.

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Updated September 16, 2022

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In This Recipe

  • Two Ways to Mix Drop Biscuits

  • A Simple Ingredients List is Best

Why It Works

  • Quickly mixing the dough with a fork reduces gluten formation, resulting in a tender, soft drop biscuit.
  • Preparing the butter first and reserving it in the refrigerator keeps it cold to avoid unwanted melting.

Traditional drop biscuits require just five ingredients, but with their buttery, salty flavor, and cloud-like bite, the final result tastes anything but ordinary. While they're simple, there are still nearly endless variations from one coveted family recipe to the next, each with intense loyalties and deep-seated tastes and opinions attached. With my hat off to your time-honored recipes and trustworthy techniques, I'm here today to present my own drop biscuit thoughts and a recipe.

Quick and Easy Drop Biscuits Recipe (2)

Fannie Farmer, of the famed Boston Cooking School, called drop biscuits "emergency biscuits," which is incredibly appropriate considering that all you need to make them is about 25 minutes and a minimally stocked pantry. In fact, because of their speedy nature, they are a valued go-to item even for professional bakers and chefs.

Quick and Easy Drop Biscuits Recipe (3)

Two Ways to Mix Drop Biscuits

To make them, I start by cutting the butter into lima bean–sized pieces and reserving it in the refrigerator to keep it nice and cold. After mixing my dry ingredients together (flour, salt, and baking powder), I add the butter and work it quickly with my hands, rubbing the butter into the flour just enough. Over-mix, and the result is tough; under-mix, and the result is dry, not tender.

This step can also be done in afood processor, requiring just a few short pulses. Much as when making a scone (which is essentially a biscuit with more sugar and an egg), you want to keep pieces of solid, visible butter in there to give you a tender, rather than dry or chewy, final drop biscuit.

The food processor is a great option when you're working with really large batches of dough, or if you're working in a particularly warm environment. Otherwise, rubbing in the butter by hand gives you more control over the mixing. It also means fewer dishes, which is always a big plus in my world.

After that, I carefully mix in the liquid with a fork to create a dough that's shaggy and moist. The beauty of the drop biscuit is that it requires much less handling than itssuper-flaky cousin, so there's much less risk of overworking the dough and developing too much gluten.

A Simple Ingredients List is Best

Quick and Easy Drop Biscuits Recipe (4)

Some recipes call for buttermilk, others for milk; since I tend to have whole milk on hand more often, I stay in line with Fannie's "emergency biscuit" philosophy and use a milk-based approach. After all, part of the advantage of these biscuits is how easy they are to throw together with ingredients that most of us have available all the time.

Unlike some recipes,my drop biscuits donotinclude an egg. Although I played around with several variations using egg, it always seemed to make a drop biscuit that was overly spongy and cake-like, rather than soft and tender.

I also experimented with different ratios of heavy cream to milk, but the higher fat content from the cream, although delicious, created a denser final product. In the end, the simple, five-ingredients formula—butter, flour, baking powder, salt, and milk—yielded the best results.

June 2014

Recipe Details

Quick and Easy Drop Biscuits Recipe

Prep5 mins

Cook20 mins

Active15 mins

Total25 mins

Serves8to 20 biscuits

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (6.6 ounces; 190g)

  • 2 teaspoons baking powder

  • 1 teaspoon (4g) Diamond Crystal kosher salt; for table salt use half as much by volume or the same weight

  • 4 ounces cold unsalted butter (1 stick; 115g), cut into 1/4-inch cubes and refrigerated

  • 3/4 cup (180ml) whole milk

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 400°F (200°C) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper; alternatively, grease the baking sheet with butter.

    Quick and Easy Drop Biscuits Recipe (5)

  2. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.

    Quick and Easy Drop Biscuits Recipe (6)

  3. Toss butter into dry ingredients until coated with flour. Working quickly, using your fingers or a pastry blender, rub or cut butter into flour until it resembles coarse meal. Alternatively, add flour mixture and butter to the bowl of a food processor and pulse 2 to 3 times to form pea-sized pieces; transfer to a large bowl.

    Quick and Easy Drop Biscuits Recipe (7)

  4. Add milk and stir with a fork until the mixture just comes together into a slightly sticky, shaggy dough.

    Quick and Easy Drop Biscuits Recipe (8)

  5. For small biscuits, use a teaspoon or a small cookie scoop to mound walnut-sized balls of dough onto prepared baking sheet. For large biscuits, use a 1/4-cup measuring cup to mound balls of dough onto prepared baking sheet.

    Quick and Easy Drop Biscuits Recipe (9)

  6. Bake biscuits until golden brown, about 15 minutes for small biscuits and 20 minutes for large ones. Let cool slightly, then transfer to a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

    Quick and Easy Drop Biscuits Recipe (10)

Special Equipment

Food processor (optional), rimmed baking sheet and wire cooling rack

Read More

  • The Serious Eats Guide to Biscuits
Nutrition Facts (per serving)
81Calories
5g Fat
8g Carbs
1g Protein

×

Nutrition Facts
Servings: 8to 20
Amount per serving
Calories81
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 5g6%
Saturated Fat 3g15%
Cholesterol 13mg4%
Sodium 131mg6%
Total Carbohydrate 8g3%
Dietary Fiber 0g1%
Total Sugars 0g
Protein 1g
Vitamin C 0mg0%
Calcium 40mg3%
Iron 0mg3%
Potassium 24mg1%
*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.

(Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate.)

Quick and Easy Drop Biscuits Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is the difference between a biscuit and a drop biscuit? ›

Drop biscuits have more milk or other liquid added to the dough than rolled biscuits. The dough is moister and cannot be kneaded or rolled; simply drop tablespoons of dough onto the baking sheet. Drop biscuits don't rise as much as other biscuits and they are always coarser in appearance and texture.

Can I make biscuits with just flour and water? ›

At MINIMUM, you'll need to add two things your flour and water to make anything resembling a biscuit; Salt and some kind of leavener.

How do you keep drop biscuits from falling apart? ›

Fat aside, a common solution to crumbly biscuits is to cut back on the measured amount of dry ingredients. According to Quaker, you should be scooping flour gently with a spoon instead of sticking your measuring cup directly into the bag, which can lead to compacted mis-measurements.

Are biscuits better made with butter or Crisco? ›

Crisco may be beneficial for other baking applications, but for biscuit making, butter is the ultimate champion!

Why are my drop biscuits crumbly? ›

When the fat is cut too small, after baking there will be more, smaller air pockets left by the melting fat. The result is a baked product that crumbles. When cutting in shortening and other solid fats, cut only until the pieces of shortening are 1/8- to 1/4-inch in size.

What is broken biscuits? ›

1.3Kg Broken Biscuit Assortment.

Variations in contents will result in some ingredients listed not being present. These are tumble-packed whole biscuits, biscuit mis-shapes and part biscuits, and some breakages will occur during packing and transit. Contains no more than 10% chocolate biscuits by weight.

Are homemade biscuits better with butter or shortening? ›

The butter version rises the highest — look at those flaky layers! The shortening biscuit is slightly shorter and a bit drier, too. Butter contains a bit of water, which helps create steam and gives baked goods a boost.

What is the secret to a good biscuit? ›

Use Cold Butter for Biscuits

For flaky layers, use cold butter. When you cut in the butter, you have coarse crumbs of butter coated with flour. When the biscuit bakes, the butter will melt, releasing steam and creating pockets of air. This makes the biscuits airy and flaky on the inside.

What kind of flour is best for biscuits? ›

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.

What not to do when making biscuits? ›

5 Mistakes You're Making With Your Biscuits
  1. Mistake #1: Your butter is too warm.
  2. Mistake #2: You're using an inferior flour.
  3. Mistake #3: You use an appliance to mix your batter.
  4. Mistake #4: You don't fold the dough enough.
  5. Mistake #5: You twist your biscuit cutter.
Feb 1, 2019

Why are my biscuits not light and fluffy? ›

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.

Should you let biscuit dough rest? ›

Cover the dough loosely with a kitchen towel and allow it to rest for 30 minutes. Gently pat out the dough some more, so that the rectangle is roughly 10 inches by 6 inches. Cut dough into biscuits using a floured biscuit cutter (or even a glass, though its duller edge may result in slightly less tall biscuits).

Is buttermilk or milk better for biscuits? ›

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

Which liquid makes the best biscuits? ›

Buttermilk adds a tangy flavor to the biscuits and makes them slightly more tender.

What makes biscuits taste better? ›

Use good butter and dairy

Because biscuit recipes call for so few ingredients, it's important that every one is high quality—you'll really taste the difference. Catherine recommends splurging a bit on a grass-fed butter or European-style butter (now's the time to reach for Kerrygold!).

Why are they called drop biscuits? ›

They are called “drop” because there is no rolling out or cutting of the dough. They are simply biscuit dough dropped onto the pan from a spoon and then baked. This makes them much faster and easier to make than traditional biscuits that are cut into circles/squares and rolled.

What does dropping biscuits mean? ›

drop biscuit in American English

noun. a biscuit made by dropping baking powder biscuit dough from a spoon onto a pan for baking.

Is a drop away more accurate than a whisker biscuit? ›

While many bowhunters who only use drop-away rests tout their products' superior speed and accuracy, field tests have indicated the difference between Whisker Biscuits and drop-aways is minimal to negligible for most hunting scenarios, losing just a few feet per second and about an inch of drop at longer distances.

What are the 2 types of biscuit dough? ›

Soft dough biscuits as the name suggests are softer and fluffier than their hard dough counterparts. They have higher levels of fat & sweetness and are generally manufactured with the help of a rotary moulding machine.

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