Martha Stewart Scott Peacock’s Buttermilk Biscuits are easy from-scratch Southern breakfast biscuits ready in 30 minutes. Cold lard rubbed by hand into sifted flour creates flaky, pull-apart layers with a crusty golden crust from a 500 degree oven.
Serve them hot with butter and honey for a Sunday brunch, or split and stuff with ham for a quick sandwich. Brushing melted butter on top right out of the oven seals in steam and keeps the inside soft.
Martha Stewart Scott Peacock’s Buttermilk Biscuits
Course: BreakfastCuisine: American, SouthernDifficulty: Easy12
servings15
minutes15
minutes330
kcalCrusty golden outside, soft and airy inside with visible flaky layers from hand-rubbed lard. These tall biscuits taste best straight from a screaming hot oven, brushed with butter.
Ingredients
5 cups sifted unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more for working, as needed
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon Scott Peacock’s Homemade Baking Powder
1 tablespoon coarse kosher salt
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons packed very cold lard or unsalted butter, cut into cubes
2 cups well-shaken buttermilk
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
Directions
- Cut in the lard: Preheat oven to 500 degrees with rack in upper third. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Add lard and coat well with flour mixture. Working quickly, rub the lard between your fingertips until roughly half is coarsely blended and half remains in large flat pieces, about 3/4 inch in size.
- Add the buttermilk: Make a well in the center of the flour-lard mixture, and add buttermilk all at once. Stir quickly with a wooden spoon, just until mixture is blended and begins to come together into a sticky dough. (The dough will not form a ball at this stage and will, in fact, look unpromising.)
- Knead and roll: Immediately turn out dough onto a generously floured surface. With well-floured hands, knead briskly 8 to 10 times, just until a cohesive ball of dough forms. With your palms, gently flatten dough to an even thickness, then roll out to a 3/4-inch thickness, working from center of dough outward with a floured rolling pin. (Flour rolling pin as needed, but avoid flouring top of dough unless you want dusty biscuits.)
- Cut and bake: Dip a dinner fork in flour, and pierce dough completely through at 1/2-inch intervals. Flour a 3-inch biscuit cutter, and stamp out rounds as close together as possible, taking care not to twist cutter. Place rounds 1/2 inch apart on a parchment-lined heavy baking sheet. Place dough pieces that remain after cutting on baking sheet, too. Bake biscuits until crusty and rich golden brown, 10 to 15 minutes. Remove biscuits from oven and brush with melted butter. Serve hot.
FAQs
Can I use butter instead of lard for these biscuits?
The recipe gives you the choice of lard or unsalted butter, so yes. Lard produces a slightly flakier, more tender biscuit because it has a higher melting point, which creates more distinct layers. If you use butter, keep it ice cold and work fast so it does not melt into the flour before baking.
How do I store leftover buttermilk biscuits?
Wrap cooled biscuits tightly in foil and keep them at room temperature up to 2 days. For longer storage, freeze them in a zip-top bag up to 3 months. To reheat, set them on a rack in a baking sheet and warm at 350 degrees for about 5 minutes, which brings back the crusty outside.
What can I use instead of homemade baking powder?
Store-bought double-acting baking powder works fine, and the recipe says so. Use the same amount: 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon. The biscuits will rise slightly differently because homemade baking powder is single-acting, but the difference is small enough that most people will not notice.
Why shouldn’t I twist the biscuit cutter?
Twisting the cutter pinches the dough layers at the edges and seals them together, which stops the biscuit from rising evenly. Press the cutter straight down and lift it straight up. If the cutter sticks, dip it in flour between cuts rather than twisting to release the dough.
Can I make the biscuit dough ahead of time?
You can cut the biscuits and freeze them unbaked on a sheet pan, then transfer to a bag once solid. Bake from frozen at 500 degrees, adding 2 to 3 extra minutes to the bake time. Do not refrigerate the assembled dough overnight, because the baking powder starts reacting once it hits the buttermilk and the biscuits will not rise as well the next day.
