Buttery & Flaky Sourdough Biscuits
These Sourdough Biscuits are both fluffy and flaky. Sourdough discard creates biscuits with a light crumb and wonderful flavor. I’ll show you a simple technique which creates a super-flaky texture.
Table of contents
Why these are the best Sourdough Biscuits
- This recipe uses a whole cup of sourdough discard.
- Gentle folding develops layers of dough that bake into lovely, buttery layers in the final biscuit.
- This dough is so tender you don’t need a rolling pin. You can easily pat it into shape using your hands.
Ingredients
Ingredient Notes
- Flour – This recipe uses a mixture of 1/2 all purpose and 1/2 cake flour. All purpose flour gives the biscuit dough enough body to create layers, and cake flour has a lower protein content to keep toughening gluten at bay. Pastry flour can be used instead of the flour mixture.
- Sourdough Discard – This recipe was developed using a 100% hydration starter. That means the starter is fed with equal weights of starter, flour and water. You may need to adjust the amount of starter in the recipe based on the moisture level of your starter.
- Buttermilk – Acidic Buttermilk tenderizes the dough and has lightly tangy flavor that is perfect in this recipe.
How to make Sourdough Biscuits:
- Combine the dry ingredients.
- Work the butter until it’s slightly larger than pea-size.
- Combine the buttermilk and the sourdough discard.
- Add the wet ingredients all at once and mix until almost combined.
- Briefly knead the dough to bring it together.
- Pat the dough to 1/2″ thick and fold in half. Pat the dough again to 1/2″ thick and fold in half.
- Pat to 3/4″ thick and cut the biscuits.
- Brush the biscuits with buttermilk.
- Bake in a hot oven until the biscuits are well-risen and golden brown.
- Sourdough Biscuits have a flaky texture a nice open crumb.
Storage
Sourdough Biscuits are best enjoyed warm from the oven or within a few hours of baking. Leftover biscuits can be frozen for up to a month. Defrost and warm in a 200F oven before serving.
Looking for something else to make with your sourdough discard? Here’s a list of my Best Sourdough Discard Recipes.
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Sourdough Biscuit Recipe
Sourdough biscuits that are both fluffy and flaky. A little discard sourdough starter gives these biscuits a wonderful flavor.
biscuits
Ingredients
- 10 oz all purpose flour (2 cups, see note)
- 8 oz cake flour (2 cups)
- 4 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon table salt
- 8 oz unsalted butter (cold and cut into 16 pieces)
- 8 oz sourdough discard (1 cup, room temperature)
- 8 oz buttermilk (1 cup, room temperature)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 °F. Line a half sheet pan with parchment paper.
- Combine 10 oz all purpose flour, 8 oz cake flour, 4 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1 tablespoon granulated sugar, and 1 teaspoon table salt in a mixing bowl. Whisk the dry ingredients to combine.
- Mix 8 oz unsalted butter into the flour with your fingers until it's broken down into bits slightly larger than a pea.
- Combine 8 oz sourdough discard and 8 oz buttermilk in a small bowl. Add the buttermilk mixture to the flour all at once. Mix until about 2/3 of the dry ingredients are absorbed.
- Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and gently knead together just to incorporate the remaining dry flour (this should only take about 6-8 kneads).
- Gently pat dough to a 1/2" thick rectangle, brush off excess flour and fold the dough in 1/2. Pat gently to stick the dough together and and fold again. Pat to 3/4 " thick disc and cut with a 2.5"-3" biscuit cutter. Gather the scraps together, pat to 3/4" thick and continue cutting until all the dough is used up.
- Set the biscuits onto the prepared baking sheet and brush the tops with buttermilk. Bake the biscuits until well rise and golden brown, about 10-12 minutes.
- If the bottoms of the biscuits are browning too fast set another sheet pan under the biscuits after 5 minutes of baking.
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Notes
If measuring the flour by volume use the “dip & sweep” method. That is, dip the measuring cup into the flour bin, overfill it, then sweep away the excess.
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Thank you for the recipe! We have greatly enjoyed the fruits of your pretzel recipe this last week. I do have to admit that I was skeptical because the recipe was so easy, but they turned out so delicious we scarfed down six of these pretzels right out of the oven. Anyway, now I’m going through your other sourdough recipes for your other gems! I failed my last attempt at making biscuits, but I think this recipe makes sense to me. However, my husband is sensitive to gluten/wheat, but can eat gluten/wheat if the product had undergone a fermentation process with sourdough starter. Is there a way to split up the process for this biscuit recipe so that the sourdough has more time to work its magic? In order for him to not react to wheat in recipes, I need to let the sourdough work for a minimum of about 3-4 hours. If I can rest it overnight, that would be even better. Can you please advise?
Hi Jessica, When I originally made this recipe I did two batches. One batch I baked right away and the other batch I left out for about an hour to see if the starter gave the biscuits extra lift. The difference was minimal so I wrote the recipe to just go ahead and bake. You could try leaving the biscuits out at room temp for a couple of hours and then bake. If you start with an unfed starter I’m not sure how much fermentation will be happening but it’s worth a try.
If we don’t have cake flour, can I just use 4 cups of AP flour?
Because ap flour absorbs more liquid than cake flour, I would start with 2 3/4 cups of ap flour then add a little more if the dough is very moist.
Your website is awesome! I’m throwing my hat in the sourdough ring like so many others who are stuck at home. My starter hit the cheesy active stage on day 3 today. If I combine my discards, refrigerated, will the cheesy discard overwhelm a recipe like this?
I wouldn’t bake with the cheesy discard. That aroma is due to the fact that the good yeasts are fighting it out with some other funky bacteria, etc. I would just toss the discard until you get a nice yeasty aroma.
Just made these tonight exactly as written. Delicious!! Thank you!!
Awesome! They are good, aren’t they?
Can you post your sourdough recipe?
Do you mean the recipe for Sourdough Starter?