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.

Mix flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt together in a large bowl. Cut in cold butter with a knife or pastry blender until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in milk, a little at a time, until dough is moistened. Drop dough by heaping spoonfuls onto the prepared baking sheet.

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.

Just as important as the fat is the liquid used to make your biscuits. Our Buttermilk Biscuit recipe offers the choice of using milk or buttermilk. Buttermilk is known for making biscuits tender and adding a zippy tang, so we used that for this test.

Heavy cream provides rich butterfat that gives the biscuits tenderness and flavor, as well as moisture from its water content. The formula requires minimal mixing, reducing the risk of too much gluten development.

He asked if I remembered Quaaludes, a sedative-hypnotic that was all the rage in the 1960s and '70s. “We called them 'Stumble Biscuits,'” he told me, “because you'd stumble down the street and hit one car and then stumble over and hit something else and it was just happy and goofy.

The secret to the best biscuits is using very cold butter and baking powder. We've made a lot of biscuits, but this easy biscuits recipe is the one we turn to the most (they are so fluffy!). See our easy drop biscuits and cheese drop biscuits for even easier biscuits.

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).

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.

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

What kind of flour do southerners use for biscuits? ›

Besides being passed down by beloved grandmothers, Southern biscuits are typically made with flour made from soft red winter wheat, such as White Lily.

Here's the Reason Biscuits in the South Really Are Better

The not-so-secret ingredient they rely upon is soft wheat flour. Soft wheat thrives in temperate, moist climates like that of the mid-Atlantic, so cooks in those areas have had access to its special flour for a long time.

In most of North America, nearly all hard sweet biscuits are called "cookies" and savoury biscuits are called "crackers", while the term "biscuit" is used for a soft, leavened quick bread similar to a savoury version of a scone.

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.

It's an appropriate name because they can be made in a hurry, as the dough is dropped from the spoon onto the pan, rather than rolled or cut. Drop biscuits have more liquid in relation to fat and flour, making a dough that's too wet to be kneaded.

Drop biscuits have a dense, crusty, and crumbly consistency, whereas roll-and-cut biscuits are light, fluffy, and flaky. Since roll-and-cut biscuits hold their shape better and have a fluffier crumb, they'd work best for biscuit sandwiches and as a flaky topping for pot pies or casseroles.