Meemaw’s Buttermilk Biscuits

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Flaky buttermilk biscuits in a striped towel-lined basket, including a braided scrap knot
Sunday morning, the way we like it (and yes, that braided knot up front made an exception for the camera).
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Every Sunday morning, Zach makes Meemaw’s biscuits.

Light, flaky, rich with butter, tender, and just about perfect. We eat them with scrambled eggs and thick-cut bacon, sometimes with sausage gravy when we’re feeling indulgent, sometimes with nothing but butter and strawberry jelly when we want simple. Every once in a while he makes them for dinner, when there’s soup or a pot of beans on the stove and biscuits just make sense.

Here’s the thing I have to admit, and it makes me grateful and a little bit annoyed in equal measure: they are my grandmother’s biscuits, I taught Zach the recipe, and somehow he makes them better than I ever have.

When Zach and I first started dating, he was the weekend breakfast cook. Eggs, bacon, and biscuits from the refrigerated tube you smack against the counter to open. The canned ones were fine. They were not Meemaw’s biscuits. So I taught him hers, the recipe she made on the farm in Hubbard, Texas, and later in Corsicana, the one she served with everything: breakfast, lunch, Sunday dinner, holidays. He learned it, he practiced it, and he passed me so fast it was almost rude.

I genuinely do not know what he does differently. Same recipe, same ingredients, same oven. His hands are bigger than mine; maybe his touch is somehow lighter, maybe he’s just better at leaving the dough alone. I’ve watched him make them dozens of times and I still can’t tell you. But it’s true, and I’ve made my peace with it. Mostly.

Biscuits like these are Southern to the bone, and it’s worth saying plainly that the tradition Meemaw inherited and Zach carries on every Sunday was shaped in no small part by Black cooks across the South whose names mostly never made it into the cookbooks. I’ll do that history justice in its own post; for now I just won’t pretend the credit isn’t owed.

A word about flour, because it matters more than you’d think. White Lily is a Southern brand milled from soft red winter wheat, lower in protein than most all-purpose flour, which is exactly why it makes such tender biscuits; less protein means less gluten to fuss over. Meemaw used White Lily. Zach uses White Lily. The biscuits are better with it. If you can’t find it, reach for the lowest-protein flour you can (around 8 percent; regular all-purpose runs closer to 11), and they’ll still be good, just a touch less tender.

  • Cubing frozen butter on a cutting board for buttermilk biscuits
  • Cubed frozen butter and White Lily flour in a mixing bowl

The part that matters most is temperature. Cold butter, cold hands, work fast. Those little chunks of butter need to still be solid when the pan hits the oven; when they melt in the heat they throw steam, and that steam is what pries the dough into flaky layers. Let the butter go soft and greasy while you’re mixing and you lose the pockets, and with them the flake. So you freeze the butter, you keep the dough cold, and any time it starts to feel warm or look greasy, you stop and put it back in the freezer for a few minutes. No shame in pausing.

Meemaw’s hands were always cool. She’d run them under cold water before she started. I do the same thing. Zach does the same thing. (His are still better. I’ve let it go. I have not let it go.)

  • Shaggy buttermilk biscuit dough turned out onto a floured surface
  • Folding biscuit dough into layers with a bench scraper
  • Hands pressing biscuit dough on a floured board
  • Rolling biscuit dough into a rectangle with a handleless wooden rolling pin

She used an old-fashioned rolling pin, the kind with no handles, just a smooth wooden cylinder, and she rolled the dough about an inch thick, cut with a sharp cutter, rerolled the scraps, and cut a few more. The very last scraps she’d braid into a little twisted knot that baked up crispy and golden, a baker’s snack that never once made it to the table. I remember her hands: short clean nails, never a manicure, hands that look a lot like mine do now. She worked quick and efficient, no wasted motion, because she’d made them so many thousands of times they were pure muscle memory. No measuring, no thinking. Just flour and buttermilk and butter becoming biscuits.

  • Half gallon of Southern Swiss Dairy creamline buttermilk on the counter
  • Cutting biscuits from rolled dough with a sharp biscuit cutter
  • Flaky buttermilk biscuits cooling on a parchment-lined baking sheet

That’s the whole inheritance, really. A recipe, a couple of tricks, and a man in my kitchen on Sunday mornings making my grandmother’s biscuits better than I can. I’ll take it.

Notes

Buttermilk. Full-fat if you can get it; the richer the buttermilk, the better the biscuit. We use Southern Swiss Dairy, a Georgia Grown creamery whose creamline buttermilk is the good stuff.

Salt. This is written for kosher salt, which is all I use. If you’re working with regular table salt, cut it to half or less, or your biscuits will come out salty.

Cut clean, don’t twist. Use a sharp biscuit cutter and press straight down; don’t twist it, and never use a water glass or anything with a dull rim. A pinched, sealed edge won’t rise. No biscuit cutter? No shame in square biscuits; just cut the rolled dough with a very sharp knife.

Flour. White Lily, for the reasons above. If you must substitute, find the lowest-protein flour you can (around 8 percent).

A truly hot oven. Preheat fully, then give it another 10 to 15 minutes after it beeps. You want the oven walls hot, not just the air inside; that first blast of heat is what sets the rise.

Print Recipe

Meemaw’s Buttermilk Biscuits

Tender, flaky Southern buttermilk biscuits built on frozen butter, low-protein White Lily flour, and a few book folds for layers. My grandmother’s recipe, now Zach’s Sunday ritual.

Ingredients

  • 2 cups White Lily flour or other low-protein flour
  • 1 cup full-fat buttermilk add slowly; you may not need all of it
  • 10 tbsp butter frozen
  • 3 tsp kosher salt using table salt? cut to half or less
  • 3 tsp baking powder

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 425°F, and let it keep heating 10–15 minutes past temperature so the oven walls are good and hot, not just the air.
  • Freeze the butter, then cut it into very small cubes. If it softens while you cut, put it back in the freezer while you handle the dry ingredients and measure the buttermilk.
  • Whisk together the flour, salt, and baking powder.
  • Rub the frozen butter into the flour with your fingers until you have lots of little flour-and-butter lumps, pea-sized or smaller (they don’t all have to match).
  • Add the buttermilk slowly, just until you have a shaggy, slightly wet dough. Sometimes that’s the full cup, sometimes a little less.
  • Turn the dough out onto a well-floured cool surface (cool, not the counter over a running dishwasher or beside the hot oven).
  • Knead a couple of times, just enough to bring it together; don’t overwork it or the biscuits turn tough.
  • Roll into a rough rectangle. Fold it into thirds, then fold that closed like a book.
  • Roll out flat again, then repeat the thirds-fold and the book-fold. Do this 6 or 7 times to build flaky layers. You’re done when the dough is no longer sticky but still soft.
  • Any time the dough feels warm or you see butter starting to melt, put it in the freezer for a few minutes to firm up.
  • After the final fold, cut biscuits with a sharp biscuit cutter (press straight down, don’t twist). Gather the scraps, fold, and cut a couple more; they won’t be quite as fluffy, but they’ll still taste good.
  • Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake about 20 minutes, until risen, flaky, and beginning to brown on top.

Notes

  • Buttermilk. Full-fat if you can get it; the richer the buttermilk, the better the biscuit. We use Southern Swiss Dairy, a Georgia Grown creamery whose creamline buttermilk is the good stuff.
  • Salt. This is written for kosher salt, which is all I use. If you’re working with regular table salt, cut it to half or less, or your biscuits will come out salty.
  • Cut clean, don’t twist. Use a sharp biscuit cutter and press straight down; don’t twist it, and never use a water glass or anything with a dull rim. A pinched, sealed edge won’t rise. No biscuit cutter? No shame in square biscuits; just cut the rolled dough with a very sharp knife.
  • Flour. White Lily, for the reasons above. If you must substitute, find the lowest-protein flour you can (around 8 percent).
  • A truly hot oven. Preheat fully, then give it another 10 to 15 minutes after it beeps. You want the oven walls hot, not just the air inside; that first blast of heat is what sets the rise.

P.S. The braided scrap knot is the baker’s reward and does not, under any circumstances, make it to the table. Meemaw’s rule. We honor it.

P.P.S. If you’ve never frozen and hand-cut cold butter before, your fingers will be cold and a little put out by the end. This is correct. Warm hands make sad biscuits.

P.P.P.S. Yes, Zach’s are better than mine. No, I will not be taking questions. (I’m thrilled. I’m also keeping score.)