Bacon Green Onion Biscuits Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Should you use butter or Crisco in biscuits? ›

The butter version rises the highest — look at those flaky layers! The shortening biscuit is slightly shorter and a bit drier, too. Butter contains a bit of water, which helps create steam and gives baked goods a boost.

For light and fluffy biscuits, steer clear of any flour made from 100% hard red wheat; this style is relatively low in starch and high in protein, readily forming gluten in a high-moisture dough. That's great when it comes to making chewy breads and pasta, but bad news for light and tender biscuits.

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

Buttermilk can produce better results when baking biscuits than using regular milk or cream. Buttermilk is acidic and when it is combined with baking soda, it creates a chemical reaction that produces carbon dioxide gas, which causes the dough to rise and gives the biscuits a light and flaky texture.

Tips to Make Perfect Biscuits

Here are some of my best tips to get flaky, delicious biscuits every single time you bake them: Freeze the Crisco shortening before starting this recipe. The colder your Crisco is, the lighter and flakier your biscuits will be.

Use Cold Butter for Biscuits

For flaky layers, use cold butter. When you cut in the butter, you have coarse crumbs of butter coated with flour. When the biscuit bakes, the butter will melt, releasing steam and creating pockets of air. This makes the biscuits airy and flaky on the inside.

Turn the dough out onto a well-floured surface and pat it down into a rough rectangle, about an inch thick. Fold it over and gently pat it down again. Repeat two more times. Cover the dough loosely with a kitchen towel and allow it to rest for 30 minutes.

While there are plenty of flour varieties to choose from, White Lily reigns above all else for Southern bakers and is the crème de la crème when it comes to the flour we use for any biscuit recipe.

What flour do Southerners use for biscuits? ›

Interestingly, the go-to product for Southern biscuits is an all-purpose flour made by White Lily, though it is essentially pastry flour because it has a very low protein content.

In the North, the flour was milled from hard winter wheat, which has a higher protein level — great for bread and other baked goods, but not ideal for biscuits, as it can make them tough. So, while biscuits were certainly baked in Northern kitchens, they didn't replace bread as the carbohydrate of choice.

Buttermilk adds a tangy flavor to the biscuits and makes them slightly more tender.

Cake flour will give you a lighter, fluffier biscuit, but the outer crust won't have as much bite to it. Conversely, all-purpose flour will provide more bite, but it'll be a drier, less airy biscuit. The solution: Use half cake flour and half all-purpose flour.

In terms of flakiness, the best fat for making biscuits is probably lard, and vegetable shortening is the next best. In terms of flavor, however, butter is undoubtedly the best, with lard a close second.

Shortening is more effective at reducing gluten formation in doughs. Indeed, this is where the name comes from — it “shortens” gluten strands. It also has a higher melting point than butter, making it less likely to smear into biscuit dough, even if you use your hands to mix it.

Additionally, shortening is high in calories and offers no nutritional benefits. Therefore, it's a good idea to limit your intake of shortening and use healthier alternatives when possible — like butter, olive oil, avocado oil, or coconut oil.

As a semi-solid fat, butter contributes to the rise and flakiness of biscuits in ways liquid oil can't replicate. But what makes butter so unique? It all comes down to baking science. In the oven, the butter melts, releasing water that evaporates into steam.