Easy Baking Powder Biscuits

Name: Easy Baking Powder Biscuits
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 30 min
Ingredients: 2 cups Flour; 2 tbsp Baking Powder; 1/2 tsp Salt; 1/2 cup Shortening; 3/4 cup milk {approx}

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This is a classic no-fail recipe to make the Best Baking Powder Biscuits. Flaky and buttery homemade biscuits, using just 5 simple ingredients. With no rising time required, this is a recipe that has been passed down from generation to generation.

baking powder biscuits in a bread basket.

Table of Contents

This biscuit recipe is fantastic when paired with a warm comforting main dish like Classic Chili Con Carne or Taco Chili. I also love this recipe with various soups like Three Cheese Broccoli Soup or a Creamy Potato Soup.

My home economics class in middle school was the first time I made a recipe without Mom by my side. The very first thing I made in this class was Baking Powder Biscuits, taken from a recipe book made by all of our parents.

These baking powder biscuits are way better than refrigerated biscuits from the grocery store (or even the Red Lobster Biscuits mix and cheddar bay biscuits). Even after all these years, this is one of my favorite recipes, with the best flavor to those flaky layers.

💗 Why You’ll Love This Recipe

EASY RECIPE – With 5 simple ingredients and 30 minutes, you’ll have the best homemade biscuits ever.
DELICIOUS – So flaky and buttery-good.
PERFECT SIDE – with almost any meal such as soups, stews, and main course dinners like garlic pork roast, crock pot pineapple ham, and even slow cooker turkey breast boneless.

Total Time: 30 Minutes

Serves: 6

🛒 Ingredients and Notes

How to make fluffy biscuits? Follow this simple recipe, of course! The first part is finding that perfect recipe, and it’s this one right here.

Flour – for best results I use all-purpose flour.
Baking Powder
Shortening – I prefer this over butter when making biscuits.
Milk – You can use 2% milk or even skim milk if you’d like. You can even se half and half milk if you have some to use up.

As always, the full ingredients and recipe is on the printable recipe card at the end of this post.

🍴 What to Serve with Biscuits

Oven biscuits are an easy side dish recipe with any kind of soup and stew. They are popular to serve with sausage gravy too.

They pair nicely with holiday dinners like Crockpot Ham with Pineapple, Simple Beef Stew and Skillet Chicken Pot Pie. We serve ours alongside Garlic Pork Roast and Crockpot Chicken Pot Pie. Yet we also love biscuits with our Easy Chicken Fried Steak Recipe.

You can also use this easy biscuit recipe to make delicious breakfast sandwiches. They are also the best tea biscuits, alone or topped with jam such as our Strawberry Chia Seed Jam.

⭐ Tips for the Best Homemade Biscuits

When cutting your shortening, dip your pastry cutter or butter knives into flour for a cleaner cut.
For best results, use cold shortening for the fluffy layers.
For fluffy biscuits that aren’t too dense, do not over-mix or over-knead.

👩🏼‍🍳 How do you make homemade fluffy biscuits?

Pre heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Sift dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl.
Cut in shortening with a pastry cutter (or pastry blender) or use two knives until the mixture has the appearance of fine crumbs.
Add milk to the large bowl. Add in a small portion at a time to the dry mixture, stirring with a fork or spoon. You’ll want coarse crumbs, and until the dough forms a ball around the spoon.
Turn raw biscuit dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead gently 10 times.
Pat or roll dough with a rolling pin until about 1.5-2 cm thick. Cut with floured cookie cutter, with even pressure.
Let the unbaked biscuits stand on an ungreased cookie sheet for 10 minutes before baking.
Bake in a preheated oven for about 15-20 minutes. Actual baking time will depend on the size of biscuits, and your oven. They are done when the tops turn lightly golden brown.
Cool on a wire rack and enjoy these best biscuits. We like to enjoy a fluffy biscuit while still warm.

📌 Make-ahead Biscuits

Make the biscuits as per the recipe, yet instead of allowing the biscuits to stand for 10 minutes, instead cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate. This can be done hours before baking to overnight.

When ready, uncover and bake in a fully preheated oven. There’s no need to warm to room temperature before baking.

🔍 How to Store Biscuits

Homemade biscuits have a tendency to dry out really fast when exposed to much air at room temperature. Once warm biscuits have cooled, it’s time to get them covered as their shelf life clock starts ticking. The best way to store biscuits is to put them in an airtight container or wrap individual biscuits with plastic wrap or saran wrap.

Store cooled biscuits in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days or in the refrigerator for up to a week. Biscuits can also be frozen for up to 3 months.

♨️ How to Reheat Biscuits

It only goes without saying, you’re going to have some leftover biscuits to enjoy at a later time. You’ll want them warm and moist later as well. Hard biscuits aren’t preferred, after all. So how do you reheat biscuits to avoid them being soggy or dry? There are a couple of different ways and different methods to get once again hot biscuits.

Reheating biscuits in a microwave:

Place biscuits on a plate or in a microwave safe container. Cover or wrap them with damp paper towels (squeeze out excess moisture first) or a moist towel and reheat in the microwave oven until warm.

Using a damp paper towel gives them moisture and prevents drying, without the reheating process causing them to be too soft inside and too hard outside.

The microwave method once might be the best option just for convenience in being the quickest way.

How to reheat biscuits in the oven:

On a cookie sheet (or baking sheet) with parchment paper, bake your biscuits for 5 minutes at 350 degrees F. You could also wrap an individual biscuit in aluminum foil (tin foil) and put them directly on the oven rack.

When warm, take them out and brush with butter or olive oil. While this method takes longer, it’s the best method.

Reheat biscuits in a toaster oven:

You can also reheat biscuits by cutting them like a bagel and placing them in a toaster or toaster oven. This way the reheated biscuits are warm and also crispy!

❔ Recipe FAQ

How to get crisp edges on biscuits?

To get your fluffy homemade biscuit edges to crisp up, bake the biscuits in a cast iron skillet.

Do I need a food processor to make biscuits?

I have never found that useful. Using a pasty cutter or two butter knives to cut the shortening does the same thing – and just as quickly, and with less cleanup.

🥣 More Quick Bread Recipes

If you’ve tried this Easy Baking Powder Biscuits or any other recipe on my blog please let me know how it went in the comments below. I love hearing from you. Finally, consider leaving a 🌟 star rating while you’re here. Thanks!