These are buttery and flaky sourdough biscuits that are super simple to make. Just a few ingredients, one bowl and just 30 minutes to have homemade biscuits that your whole family will love. I highly recommend these biscuits, not because it’s a recipe that I developed and love; but because everyone – even if you don’t consider yourself a baker – can make these biscuits.
❤️ Why You’ll Love Sourdough Biscuits
When my husband and I first got married, his grandma came over and taught me how to make gravy because my husband’s favorite breakfast is biscuits and gravy. So, we popped open a can of Pilsbury biscuits, made gravy from scratch and all enjoyed a deliciously warm breakfast together. I asked if she had ever made biscuits from scratch – to which she replied “yes, but that takes too much effort”. And if grandma wasn’t doing it, I was doing it.
Fast forward to now – I have a sourdough starter, an urge to cook from scratch, and refuse to believe that good biscuits take “too much effort”. So here we are, buttery, flaky, and SIMPLE sourdough biscuits that I truly believe anyone can make.
🍲 Ingredients
Sourdough Discard – Inactive, unfed sourdough starter. (preferably, from the fridge so it was cold)
Flour – I use Kirkland’s organic, unbleached all-purpose flour for my recipes, and while organic isn’t always necessary, I always recommend unbleached flour.
Baking powder + soda – The leavening agent to these biscuits, and the one tablespoon of baking powder in the recipe is absolutely necessary to the texture.
Salt – I love Pink Himalayan salt but you can use whatever you have.
Butter – COLD, chopped butter.
Milk – I use whole milk, but you can absolutely switch this for buttermilk to make the classic buttermilk biscuit.
👩🍳 How to Make Sourdough Biscuits
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together all the dry ingredients.
- Cut in your stick of cold butter, either with a pastry cutter or using your fingers. Mix until the butter is incorporated into the flour, make sure there are still little bits of butter left to melt into the dough while baking.
- Whisk in your sourdough discard and combine. Slowly add in your milk and continue mixing until everything is just combined.
- Turn the crumbly dough out onto a lightly floured work surface. Work the dough together with your hands and roll out into a small rectangle.
- With a large knife or bench scraper, cut the dough into thirds and stack them on top of each other. Press the pieces down and roll out the dough into a rectangle that is approximately ½ an inch thick.
- Cut your biscuits with a biscuit cutter or the top of a pint glass. You should have enough dough to make 8 biscuits.
- Transfer the biscuits to a parchment lined baking sheet. Brush the top of the dough with heavy cream.
- Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. While your oven is preheating place your baking sheet into the fridge or freezer to chill, ensuring your butter stays cold and the texture of the biscuits remains flaky.
- Bake for 14-16 minutes.
- Enjoy warm with a smear of butter and a drizzle of honey!
🪄 Tips and Tricks
- Like scones, making sure your butter remains cold in the dough is very important. If you can, use sourdough discard straight from the fridge to help the temperature.
- Using the top of a pint glass as a replacement for a biscuit cutter is an easy little hack to get perfectly shaped biscuits every time.
🗒 Substitutions
Since these don’t have a lot of ingredients, there aren’t many substitutions to make. But like with any great biscuit recipe – you can substitute the whole milk for buttermilk for a classic southern biscuit recipe.
- Whole milk – buttermilk.
🗒 Best served with
- Smear of butter and drizzle of honey.
- Brunch spread
- Favorite jelly/ jam
👝 How to Store Leftovers
Biscuits are a great bread to freeze, or you can store the leftover biscuits in an air tight container on the counter for 3 – 4 days.
🤔 Common Questions
If your dough feels too crumbly, it’s best to work the mixture with wet hands until it comes together, Usually the warmth of your hands will bring the dough together.
If you don’t have any heavy cream, you can brush the tops with egg wash instead!
Sourdough Biscuits
Equipment
- mason jar lid/ pint glass for cutting the biscuits
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tbs baking powder
- ½ tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
- ½ cup cold butter 1 stick
- 1 cup sourdough discard
- ½ cup milk
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together all the dry ingredients.
- Cut in your stick of cold butter, either with a pastry cutter or using your fingers. Mix until the butter is incorporated into the flour, making sure there are still little bits of butter left to melt into the dough while baking.
- Whisk in your sourdough discard and combine. Slowly add in your milk and continue mixing until everything is just combined.
- Turn the crumbly dough out onto a lightly floured work surface. Work the dough together with your hands and roll out into a small rectangle.
- With a large knife or bench scraper, cut the dough into thirds and stack them on top of each other. Press the pieces down and roll out the dough into a rectangle that is approximately ½ an inch thick.
- Cut your biscuits with a biscuit cutter or the top of a pint glass. You should have enough dough to make 8 biscuits.
- Transfer the biscuits to a parchment lined baking sheet. Brush the top of the dough with heavy cream.
- Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. While your oven is preheating place your baking sheet into the fridge or freezer to chill, ensuring your butter stays cold and the texture of the biscuits remains flaky.
- Bake for 14-16 minutes.
- Enjoy warm with a smear of butter and a drizzle of honey!
This recipe came at a perfect time because I didn’t want buttermilk biscuits for soup, but I wanted something quick. And I have a lot of discard to use.
These were buttery, flaky, and will definitely be on repeat here. Even my 3yo bread connoisseur enjoyed them
Acts of Sourdough with another 10/10 stars recipe! This was so easy to make. I have experimented with a few different discard recipes for biscuits and this one is by far the best! If you follow these instructions you will get crispy flaky crust to your biscuits. SO delicious! Thank you for always making such easy to follow recipes using ingredients I typically always have on hand.