how to make flaky sourdough biscuits (Step-by-Step Guide)

If you want to learn how to make flaky sourdough biscuits with lots of layers using no buttermilk, you are in the right place.

When we first got married, I was determined to develop my cooking skills beyond boiling water and reading a recipe. My husband, Carson, bragged to me that his mom’s homemade biscuits are “real biscuits” — the kind with flaky layers that rise a mile-high. He even had one of her old biscuit cutters, which he passed on to me with a suggestion that I try to recreate them.

I was up for the challenge! But after a couple subpar batches — especially in the height department — I decided to use my own mom’s trick of stacking two raw biscuit dough cutouts on top of each other before baking. Carson was impressed with the height at first, and loved how they divided into perfect halves. However, he soon caught on to my secret method and playfully called it “cheating.”

HOW TO MAKE FLAKY SOURDOUGH BISCUITS: THE Simple Science of LAYERS

Determined to make a true high-rising biscuit with more than one “layer”, I started researching the cooking science behind flaky layers. I began to realize it’s more about the technique than the actual ingredients. Here are the details that make all the difference:

• Use solid fat: Solid (or semi-solid) fat is used so that it melts during baking, making pockets of steam that create the flakiness.
  • Baker’s Note: I struggled with this at first and could not get my pastry cutter to cut my very stiff cold butter, upset that they ever named it a pastry “cutter.” I was about to cut it into chunks with a knife (which works too, but dirties another dish) until I tried turning the butter stick on end and angling the pastry cutter. By applying downward pressure to flake off thin layers lengthwise, it became so much easier, doable, even!
• Coat the flour: Coating the flour thoroughly in the fat makes the tender, buttery crumb.
• Folding (easy lamination): The dough is literally folded and compressed repeatedly to create those distinct layers. Be careful not to overwork the dough because that makes the biscuits tough and chewy instead of light and tender.
• Roll it thicker: Thicker dough equals higher biscuits! This may be obvious, but I also started rolling my dough out thicker. To do this, I had to ditch my mother-in-law’s closed-top biscuit cutter, which limited my dough to a half-inch thick. I started using an open-top cutter and ambitiously experimented with dough one inch thick, but that required a lot of dough! So, I finally settled on a three-quarter-inch average.
• Cut straight down: Press the biscuit cutter straight down rather than twisting it so that the edges are free to rise to their full potential, instead of being smooshed or sealed and limiting rise.

Each one of these tweaks is a very small thing, but together, they transformed my biscuits into something that I am proud to make for friends and family.

Sourdough-izing & a Vegan Option!

Once I mastered the technique, I sourdough-ized my recipe to make the most of my starter and give them that wonderful sourdough flavor.

Later, I tested a vegan version, swapping my butter for semi-solid coconut oil during a campout with some ladies from church who were vegan. They asked me all about the recipe and raved about the biscuits. They were a little imperfectly cooked because we were experimenting with cooking over a fire, but they still tasted great.

Tips for Biscuit-making with Toddlers

Toddlers love helping in the kitchen, but they can very easily overwork the dough, resulting in tough biscuits. My solution for this with my kitchen helper, Timberlynn, is to let her help me cut out the biscuits, and then give her the last of the dough that isn’t quite enough for a full biscuit. Knowing she gets the last piece helps her to be more patient as I work the rest. I used to try to get her to shape that piece and give it to me to bake as a thirteenth smaller biscuit, but it was usually tough from being overworked anyway, and it keeps her occupied longer if I just think of it as play-dough and don’t worry about baking it.