By Sam Sifton
Updated Feb. 28, 2024
- Total Time
- 15 minutes
- Cook Time
- 10 to 15 minutes
- Rating
- 4(176)
- Notes
- Read community notes
Cake flour, a low-protein flour that is available in supermarkets from Boston to Chicago, north to Seattle and down to Los Angeles, makes a fine biscuit with a delicate, silken texture that does well with syrups and runny fried eggs.
Featured in: Cake-Flour Biscuits
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Ingredients
Yield:Serves 6 to 8
- 2¼ cups cake flour, plus more for dusting
- 1tablespoon baking powder
- 1scant tablespoon sugar
- 1teaspoon salt
- 3tablespoons cold lard
- 3tablespoons cold unsalted butter, preferably European style
- ¾ cup whole milk
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (8 servings)
242 calories; 10 grams fat; 5 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 4 grams monounsaturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 33 grams carbohydrates; 1 gram dietary fiber; 3 grams sugars; 4 grams protein; 174 milligrams sodium
Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
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Preparation
Step
1
Preheat oven to 425. Sift flour, baking powder, sugar and salt into a large mixing bowl. Transfer to a food processor. Cut lard and butter into pats and add to flour, then pulse 5 or 6 times until the mixture resembles rough crumbs. (Alternatively, cut lard and butter into flour in the mixing bowl using a fork or a pastry cutter.) Return dough to bowl, add milk and stir with a fork until it forms a rough ball.
Step
2
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 pat it down again, as gently as you can. Repeat. Now 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 glass or biscuit cutter. Do not twist cutter when cutting; this crimps the edges of the biscuit and impedes its rise.
Step
3
Place biscuits on a cookie sheet and bake until golden brown, approximately 10 to 15 minutes.
Ratings
4
out of 5
176
user ratings
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Cooking Notes
Jack
This is a fantastic recipe for light, flaky biscuits (cake flour is low gluten similar to how a winter wheat like White Lily would be) but the trick is to completely ignore the milk measurement.
Start with a tiny bit of milk and super slowly add more until the dough comes together without being too wet. It may take less than the recipe calls for, it may take more. The goal is having it just come together enough so you can fold the dough a few times and get those nice biscuit layers.
Joe
Am an experienced baker, but could not get this to come together into a cohesive dough so that I could cut out my biscuits.
Only had the "bad" shelf-stable lard, so used all butter instead. Seems like the cake flour is so weak in gluten that this is a stretch to get it to work.
Dal
This is my dream biscuit recipe. I've always made it with all butter and rarely use cake flour. Despite those changes, the recipe still comes out beautifully--light, flaky, and absolutely delicious.
Lauren Dowell
I’ve run out of white lily (I’m shocked as well). Had to make apple butter last night (apples were given to me, couldn’t waste them). My wife wanted biscuits this morning for the apple butter. This was my first search result and it’s perfect. Came up light and fluffy and really just perfect. I used all butter (no lard in the house) and half and half for the milk (no milk either).
evenetia
If you don't have lard, what can you substitute? More butter?
Margaret
20 minutes from start to out of the oven. Very light and fluffy and delicious
SSAL
Made these this morning. Result was perfect with a few changes. 1) food processor is the bomb. So easy to use this. 2) we subbed butter for lard. Used 6 tablespoons butter total. 3) tie kicker? Subbed 3/4 of the cake flour for whole wheat flour. Added the gluten needed to soak up the milk. Gave the biscuits a nutty sweetness but they still rose. We used salted butter and the salt. Right on the edge but got rave reviews from the entire family.
Lauren Dowell
I’ve run out of white lily (I’m shocked as well). Had to make apple butter last night (apples were given to me, couldn’t waste them). My wife wanted biscuits this morning for the apple butter. This was my first search result and it’s perfect. Came up light and fluffy and really just perfect. I used all butter (no lard in the house) and half and half for the milk (no milk either).
+dani
these came out great - agree about the milk = you may need more or you may need less, add enough to get it to bind roughly together in the bowl + to be able to pat it out.
Brian
could this be made using a stand mixer?
+dani
no, too rough + you need the cutting action of the blade. better off do it by hand using two knives or a pastry cutter if you have it
Ken
I followed recipe meticulously, w/ high quality leaf lard, European-style butter, etc. with one slight modification: I only had 2% milk so I added about 1 1/2 tsp cream. (Also this was my first time using Rumford non-aluminium baking powder.) Cut fats into dry ingredients by hand till consistency of corn meal. Dough was very wet, even before I finished adding all milk. Baked biscuits did not brown, even after 20 min, did not rise, and had a subtle unpleasant lard taste. Not sure what went wrong.
Dal
This is my dream biscuit recipe. I've always made it with all butter and rarely use cake flour. Despite those changes, the recipe still comes out beautifully--light, flaky, and absolutely delicious.
Joe
Am an experienced baker, but could not get this to come together into a cohesive dough so that I could cut out my biscuits.
Only had the "bad" shelf-stable lard, so used all butter instead. Seems like the cake flour is so weak in gluten that this is a stretch to get it to work.
Jack
This is a fantastic recipe for light, flaky biscuits (cake flour is low gluten similar to how a winter wheat like White Lily would be) but the trick is to completely ignore the milk measurement.
Start with a tiny bit of milk and super slowly add more until the dough comes together without being too wet. It may take less than the recipe calls for, it may take more. The goal is having it just come together enough so you can fold the dough a few times and get those nice biscuit layers.
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