Old-Fashioned All-Butter Angel Biscuits Recipe (2024)

You’ll Love Buttery Angel Biscuits If:

Not all recipes are for all people, so here’s a description of these biscuits. If you think they sound great, you can skip straight to the recipe and get started.

If you need a bit more guidance, please read on. The recipe is at the bottom of the post.

You’ll love these if you like biscuits that:

• Have a bread-like quality
• Have crackly tops and tender insides
• Bake up tall with lots of layers
• Have a bit of a buttermilk tang to them
• Are just a bit chewy like fresh, homemade bread

If these sound like the angel biscuits of your dreams and you do make them, please consider leaving a comment, a rating, and/or a review. This feedback not only helps me but will help others decide if they’d like to make some also.

What Are Angel Biscuits?

It’s hard to know for sure why they’re called angel biscuits, but maybe because they rise so well and are soft and tender.

The main characteristics of angel biscuits are that:

• they are made with all shortening
• they use both yeast and baking powder for leavening

I broke rule number one and used all butter instead.

Why? Because butter tastes better than shortening while still assisting with rise.

PRO TIP: Using refrigerated ghee or clarified butter will get you all the butter flavor with none of the water in whole butter. This should ensure a rise almost as high as all-shortening angel biscuits.

How to Make Them

Ingredients and Substitutions

Here’s what you’ll need to make your own pillowy yeast biscuits. I’ll provide substitution ideas where possible.

• water: I use warm tap water. You only need 1/4 cup, and it’s used to give the yeast a bit of time to hydrate
• yeast: You can use instant or active yeast. Either will work.
• buttermilk: The best substitute for buttermilk, which I use frequently, is plain Greek yogurt thinned to buttermilk consistency with water. If you do have buttermilk, either low-fat or full fat buttermilk will work
• all-purpose flour: I use King Arthur, but you can also use a lower protein all-purpose flour such as Gold Medal
• sugar: Enough to help feed the yeast, add a touch of sweetness, and assist in browning in the oven. You can use brown sugar if you prefer, although it will darken the color of the biscuits just a bit
• salt: Don’t leave out the salt. It brings all the flavors into focus and helps control yeast growth as well
• baking powder: Acts as an additional leavener
• baking soda: Assists in leavening and also raises the pH a little bit to counteract the acidity in the buttermilk
• cold butter: You can also substitute cold clarified butter or cold ghee. Either will give you slightly more rise than whole butter, although I use whole butter because that’s what most folks have on hand

How to Mix Angel Biscuits

Not surprisingly, these biscuits are made using the Biscuit Method, which is similar to the muffin method with the additional step of cutting fat into the dry ingredients.

In short:

• Combine all dry ingredients and whisk well:
• Cut or rub in cold butter
• Mix all wet ingredients together
• Pour wet into dry and gently mix until mostly combined

When I make biscuits, I like to give them a few rolls and folds to build in some layers.

Behold, my photo tutorial about how to roll and fold layers into your biscuits, angel or otherwise.

Rolling in Biscuit Layers

I love biscuits with layers. And you don’t have to buy canned biscuits to get those thin layers. You can roll them in yourself.

Here’s how:

1. Mix the dough until it barely comes together and then dump it out of a well-floured counter. Sprinkle additional flour on top of the pile of shaggy dough:

2. This photo shows the first “roll out” with my rolling pin. The dough really isn’t holding together at all at this point, so be sure to use your bench knife to help with folding the dough in half.

You can see it barely holds together, so you will really need to use your bench knife to assist. If anything falls off, just piece it back together. It will come together in another couple of rolls. Promise.

3. After 6 turns and folds but before rolling it out to its final thickness. See how nicely it came together?

5. Roll out your dough to its final thickness, about 1/2-3/4″. Trim off the folded edges with your bench knife because they will impede the rise:

Don’t waste those cut off ends. You can brush them with buttermilk and bake them right along with the biscuits. Or, roll them in some butter and Parmesan cheese and twist them into biscuit bread sticks before baking.

6. Use your bench knife to cut biscuits the size you want. I was able to get 20 all-butter angel biscuits from this recipe. Brush the tops with buttermilk or with some melted butter before baking.

If you’re serving them with something savory, consider grinding on some cracked black pepper as well.

Why Make Square Biscuits?

Most biscuit recipes tell you to roll or pat out your dough, cut rounds as close together as you can, then re-roll the scraps.

These recipes come right out and tell you that these “second roll” biscuits won’t rise as high and might be a bit tougher, yet they tell you to do it anyway.

Here’s a tip:

PRO TIP: For next to zero waste and no “second roll” inferior biscuits, cut biscuits into squares with your bench knife.

Equipment Recommendations

If you don’t already have a bench knife, please pick one up. They’re inexpensive, are useful for a wide variety of tasks, not the least of which are helping to fold biscuit dough and cutting out biscuits, and they will last you for decades.

I also recommend a French rolling pin for rolling biscuits. The gentle curve allows you to easily roll a radius, and the long length of the pin ensures you don’t end up with roll marks from the edge of the pin running over the dough.

Variations

Add your favorite herb blend and garlic powder to the dry ingredients to make herbed angel biscuits.

For Parmesan angel biscuits, sprinkle 2-3 Tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan onto the dough before each roll and fold. Another option is to whisk about 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese into the dry ingredients before rubbing in the butter.

A reader told me her mom used this dough to make Parker House rolls. Here’s how you’d do that:

1. Cut the biscuits in rounds.
2. Make a fold line slightly off-center and add a pat of butter.
3. Fold the shorter half of the circle over the butter and press the edges together lightly.
4. Brush with buttermilk or some melted butter and bake as per the directions.

My blogging friend Julie of Willow Bird Baking said that she uses angel biscuit dough to make cinnamon rolls. She learned that from her grandmother. Seems like an excellent plan!

Also take a look at my easy croissant recipe. I based that recipe on this one with just a few tweaks. If you love these biscuits, I bet you’ll enjoy the croissants as well.

Angel Biscuit Q&A

Serving Suggestions

Biscuits are the perfect bread to enjoy with any hearty meal. Liberally buttering a biscuit is always a good plan.

Make breakfast sandwiches on a split angel biscuit, or serve them split with sausage gravy for a hearty southern breakfast. (That link goes to a breakfast burger that has sausage gravy as one of the components)

For a light breakfast, serve angel biscuits with some fig jam, bacon jam, or with apple butter.

Questions?

A Note About Measurements

It will help me and other readers so much if you take a moment to rate and leave a review for this recipe.

You can use the stars to rate 1-5 (5 is best), and leave a review in the comments. It helps me make adjustments if any are needed, and comments help others decide whether the recipe is worth making.

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Thank you so much for taking the time!

And now, without further ado, I give you my recipe for All-Butter Angel Biscuits.

I hope you enjoy the angel biscuit recipe, friends!

Thanks for spending some time with me today. Take care, and have a lovely day.

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