Cheddar Biscuits Recipe
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These cheesy biscuits call for frozen butter, which is grated through the large holes of a box grater to cut down on prep time. This trick creates flaky biscuits in a breeze—no pastry cutter required! Serve them with our Cranberry ‘Spread.’
What to buy:
Stay away from your typical blocks of part-skim yellow cheddar or (oh, the horror!) preshredded cheddar. Go for an aged farmhouse cheddar like Fiscalini’s Extra Mature Bandage Wrapped Cheddar.
Special equipment: This set of Ateco round cutters is a useful thing to have in your kitchen. We used the 2-inch one to make these biscuits.
Game plan: Keep a few sticks of butter in the freezer for whenever the biscuit urge hits.
This recipe was featured as part of our Thanksgiving, Southern-Style menu, as well as our 2009 Presidential Inauguration Menu.
- 5 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon kosher salt
- 4 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
- 2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, frozen
- 2 cups buttermilk
- 1 cup finely grated aged farmhouse cheddar cheese, plus more for topping the biscuits
- 1/4 cup heavy cream
- Heat the oven to 400°F and arrange a rack in the middle. Combine all dry ingredients in a large bowl. Grate frozen butter through the large holes of a box grater and toss grated butter with dry ingredients until butter is coated with flour. Rub butter and flour between your fingers until evenly mixed.
- Add buttermilk and grated cheddar cheese. Stir briefly until it forms a shaggy mass. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead very lightly until ingredients are evenly mixed.
- Roll out to about a 1/2- to 3/4-inch thickness and use a 2-inch biscuit cutter to cut rounds. Place on baking sheets. Reroll what’s left of the dough. You should have about 40 biscuits. Discard any remaining bits of dough.
- Brush the tops of the biscuits with heavy cream. Place a pinch of grated cheddar on top of each biscuit. Bake until golden brown, rotating once, about 20 minutes.
Note: We found that dipping your biscuit cutter in a small dish of flour as you cut really helps prevent the dough from sticking to it.
Red Lobster's Cheddar Bay Biscuits are ridiculously good, but these look awesome too!
The biscuits came out a bit too dry for me. I halved the recipe, but followed everything else to spec. Any suggestions for a softer biscuit interior? Maybe bake for less time?
can you prepare these ahead of time and hold in refrigerator before baking?
kelea, A softer, younger cheese, such as the ones you mention, will add more moisture to your biscuits, likely ruining their flaky texture. Aged cheddar is drier and easy to grate. If you want a less-assertive cheese, perhaps try simply reducing the cheddar amount or sub a grating cheese that you do like--Parmigian-Reggiano would be a good choice. My recommendation, however, is to try the recipe as-is. The cheese does not overpower the biscuits and you just might like them with the cheddar! Let us know!
Could you make this recipe with a lighter cheese? I'm a fan or mozzerella/brie/muenster. Very light cow's cheese...aged cheddar can be a little strong for me at times. The recipe looks great but I would like to try it with a different type of cheese. Recommendations?
I love the idea of grating the butter, cutting it in with a pastry tool can be a chore. Also, the cream rinse before baking is a great way to get a finished look.
Thanks Aidam--Mimolette seems to be the ticket (I posted a similar query for another recipe and that was the fave there too.) Aged cheddar is not always easy to find here and I never would have thought about a Corsican tomme but that could be good.
I suppose I'll have to make the recipe a few times and see ;-)
Cheers
haapi: There are so many french cheeses out there that it is hard to limit it to just a few. I would recommend you try Mimolette Francaise (sometimes called Boule de Lille) in this recipe. Look for one that has been aged about 24 months in order to approximate the flavor we were going for in this recipe.
If you can't find Mimolette, many other cheeses could work in this recipe though they would assert their own distinct tastes. Try any of the following: Cantal (aged 6 months or more), a Tomme (especially an aged Corsican Tomme), a Tome Pays Basque, or Pave de Roubaix (harder to find but worth the hunt). If you are in France, you should also have good access to aged English cheddars, which would work fabulously in this recipe.
Are there any European (esp. French) readers out there who can suggest a good alternative to cheddar?
Tia