Soft and Tender Buttermilk Drop Biscuits
These Soft and Tender Buttermilk Drop Biscuits are the easiest biscuits you’ll ever make and you can mix and bake them within minutes! They are so easy, you just mix them and drop by spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet. Easy!
Soft and tender buttermilk drop biscuits are wonderful! Growing up, my mother always made regular cut-out biscuits, which were a tiny bit more involved than making drop biscuits.
At the age of nineteen, I ate my first drop biscuit when I had just finished a year of college and was renting my first place on my own…oh, and very poor at the time.
My wonderful landlady, Mrs. Lilly Mae Thomas, invited me to Sunday dinner and made drop biscuits while I watched. I couldn’t get over how quick she mixed them up and dropped them by spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet. The biscuits and the meal were delicious, partly because they just were…and partly because my fridge was almost empty and I was really missing my mother’s cooking. Now each time I make these easy but wonderful biscuits I think of Mrs. Thomas.
Once you see how easy these biscuits are to make, you won’t stop at making them for breakfast. You’ll be fixing them for a side to your favorite soups and stews as well.
Don’t worry, if you’ve never made a homemade biscuit in your life, you can make these Soft and Tender Buttermilk Drop Biscuits. It takes about 1 minute to pop open a can of biscuits and 5 minutes to mix these up. You can make these in no time, I promise.
The secret to perfect drop biscuits is using very cold butter, and cutting it into small pieces, before cutting it into the dry ingredients. Then add very cold buttermilk and mix everything together. It’s that easy. Drop the dough by spoonfuls onto a baking sheet and bake them. No kneading…no cutting!
These tender biscuits are made with pure butter and buttermilk. Baking powder and baking soda act as the leavening agents to make them rise.
If you don’t have buttermilk you can use milk if needed in this recipe. Simply use 2 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder and omit the baking soda. Baking soda needs buttermilk to make it work.
You can drop the biscuit dough by large spoonfuls for a rustic looking biscuit or you can use a large 1/2 cup cookie/ice cream scoop for a neater appearance. Either way, they will disappear in no time!
These biscuits don’t have to be overly brown to done. If you want a darker top, feel free to brown more, but they are perfect and baked through with lighter tops.
I love to eat these biscuits hot with some Country Fried Apples.
If you make this recipe please rate it, and leave a comment below on how you liked it. I love hearing from you!
Wanna see different recipes each day? Feel free to follow me on Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram.
Print
Soft and Tender Buttermilk Drop Biscuits
- Prep Time: 10
- Cook Time: 20
- Total Time: 30
- Yield: 8 1x
- Category: Breads/Breakfast
- Method: Bake
- Cuisine: American
Description
These Soft and Tender Buttermilk Drop Biscuits are the easiest biscuits you’ll ever make and you can mix and bake them within minutes! They are so easy, you just mix them and drop by spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet. Easy!
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) real unsalted butter, cold
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 cup full fat buttermilk, or milk if you don’t have buttermilk
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- Grease a cookie sheet with solid shortening.
- Cut the butter into small pieces, trying to handle as little as possible, and set aside.
- Measure and level off flour and place it in a large bowl. Add the salt, baking powder and baking soda and mix well.
- Using a pastry cutter, cut the cold butter into the flour until the mixture resembles small peas.
- Add the milk to the mixture and mix with the pastry cutter, just until the mixture comes together and forms a wet dough. Do not over mix.
- Drop the dough by heaping spoonfuls onto the greased baking sheet.
- Bake for 18-20 minutes until the biscuits are golden brown on the tops and bottoms.
- Remove from oven and brush the tops with butter and serve.
Notes
- For a soft and tender biscuit, make sure you mix just until the mixture forms a wet dough and stop mixing. This should only take a few seconds.
These are fantastic! I don’t keep buttermilk on hand but I have powdered buttermilk that I keep so I just followed the directions which adds it to the dry ingredients and then add 1 cup of water. I also used my food processor,pulsed dry ingredients, pulsed in the cold butter and then added my liquid and pulsed again to mix. Thanks for your recipe! My family loved them!
Hi Marcinda,
I’m so glad they were a hit. These are my go-to biscuits when I’m short on time. So easy!
I’m going to try your recipe — the drop biscuits I made this morning were ….. ahem…. crunchy. 🙂
Hopefully they will turn out better the next time following your directions!
If I don’t have a pastry cutter, is there another way?
Hi Alexia, You can use a large fork…you just need something to cut the butter up and mix it into the flour.
Yes just use two butter knives, one in each hand, slicing cross ways across the bitter into the dry ingredients.
These taste great! I had to make my own baking powder so they didn’t rise much & I don’t have a pastry cutter but thankfully, my husband is very easy going. 😉 They were great with the Chicken a la King.