Cake-Flour Biscuits
Updated Feb. 28, 2024
- Total Time
- 15 minutes
- Cook Time
- 10 to 15 minutes
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
- 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
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.
Private Notes
Comments
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.
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.
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.
If you don't have lard, what can you substitute? More butter?
20 minutes from start to out of the oven. Very light and fluffy and delicious
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.