BAKE: How to Make Butter-Swim Biscuit Mix for Fresh Biscuits in a Flash!
- Hot Fluffy Homemade Biscuits on the Table in 30 Minutes or Less
- Simple Ingredients, Extraordinary Results
- Save Time with Homemade Butter-Swim Biscuit Mix
- Variations for Whole Grain or Shortcake Butter-swim Biscuit Mix
- Butter-swim Biscuit Mix is Adventure-Approved
- Makes a Great Homemade Gift
Hot Fluffy Homemade Biscuits on the Table in 30 Minutes or Less
I’ve been making classic buttermilk biscuits for decades, and I still love them and all their flaky goodness, but after learning about how to make homemade butter-swim biscuit mix, traditional biscuits have some stiff competition. Butter-Swim biscuits are incredibly easy and almost fool-proof to make from scratch. You’ll see why they get their name in a minute – they bake swimming in a golden pool of rich melted butter. Unlike the traditional biscuit method where you carefully cut cold butter into the dry ingredients, these are unbelievably easy to bake and forgiving for beginning and expert bakers alike, and best of all, there’s no sticky dough to roll out or mess to clean off your counters and hands.
And with a little pre-planning on a lazy day, you can batch measure everything in advance to make it even easier to have fresh biscuits in a flash! Your future self will thank you when you grab a jar of your homemade butter-swim biscuit mix, melt a stick of butter, add buttermilk, and one bowl and one pan later and a short stint in the oven, you’re done. Hot, fresh biscuits with no unnatural additives in half an hour, most of which is hands-off, in-the-oven time, so you can go back to dealing with the rest of the meal (or just, you know, life).
Simple Ingredients, Extraordinary Results
You make these quick buttery biscuits from basic ingredients that you probably already have in your kitchen (and if not, we’ll talk about how to stock your pantry with basic staples on another day): flour, butter, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and buttermilk (or sour milk- you can use regular or even canned milk with a few teaspoons of bottled lemon juice or even a light-colored vinegar).
Save Time with Homemade Butter-Swim Biscuit Mix
The ingredients are quick enough to mix up that you can just make them whenever you want them, but I like to batch-prep these in advance, assembly line style. Get out all your ingredients, measuring cups and spoons, a mixing bowl, a whisk, a small sifter (for the baking powder and soda so there are no bitter clumps of leavening in your biscuits), and some quart mason jars and a jar funnel, or quart-size ziploc bags.
Rather than scale up the ingredients by the number of jars I plan to fill and mixing one big batch, I measure each ingredient out per batch, mix well, and fill the container, to make sure that the proportions of ingredients are correct. You can even skip the mixing bowl and whisk if you’re using mason jars and measure straight into your container, but it’s a little harder to sift the leavening and make sure everything is well mixed that way (if you go this route, shake well after putting a lid on the jars, or sift the contents of the jar through a wire sieve into your mixing bowl when you make the biscuits).
This is faster than getting out all the ingredients and measuring and mixing implements each time- it’s not hard to make these completely from scratch, but especially on days when you’re low on spoons, it helps to have less spoons to juggle. Just melt your butter in the baking pan while the oven preheats, dump your biscuit mix into a bowl, add the buttermilk, lightly mix, then pour into the pan. You just run a spatula through the batter to separate the biscuits, put ’em in the oven and set a timer, and less than half an hour later your hot, fluffy, perfect biscuits are done!
Variations for Whole Grain or Shortcake Butter-swim Biscuit Mix
You can play around with this basic formula to customize these. Substitute some or all of the flour for whole grain wheat, white wheat, rye, or even cornmeal. Just don’t replace more than a third of the flour with cornmeal or rye flour, and bake a trial batch before pre-mixing a bunch to make sure you’re happy with the final product!
Increase the sugar for sweeter biscuits, perfect for shortcake desserts or for longer shelf life (sugar is hygroscopic, meaning it attracts and holds moisture, and helps keep baked goods soft and keeps them from drying out). I like these with just a hint of sweetness, especially for breakfast sandwiches or a savory side, but plenty of bakers add more. They’re your biscuits, so you can decide! And unlike canned biscuits or many commercial biscuit mixes, there are no food additives, artificial or hydrogenated fats, or other icky stuff, and for a fraction of the cost of the commercial convenience food version… Just real food and real love in each batch.
Butter-swim Biscuit Mix is Adventure-Approved
Going glamping, car or canoe camping, or just beating the heat by cooking in your backyard… anywhere you have a dutch oven and a firepit with hot coals? You can bake these on a campfire with a cast iron dutch oven with a lid. Cut the biscuits into pie-shaped wedges and place hot coals on top of the lid… they may cook faster than in your oven so check on them after 15 minutes to make sure they don’t burn. You can also use a Coleman oven or other stovetop oven, or even make an improvised camp oven using a large pot, a couple rocks or pot rack that fits inside the large pot, and a smaller pan that fits inside the large one (but that’s a post of its own for later).
Either way, you will be the campground hero (and hopefully get out of pot-and-pan duty by impressing all your friends with your backcountry gourmet prowess). If you’re travelling light, make them ahead and pack biscuit sandwiches for your weekend hikes or the first night on the trail. They’re much less crumbly than traditional biscuits, and stay moist and fresh if tightly wrapped up in your pack for a day or two.
Makes a Great Homemade Gift
Need gift basket ideas? Print up a cute label with instructions for jars of your homemade butter-swim biscuit mix. Pair your mix with some homemade jams and jellies, local honey, and a rustic basket or sophisticated tote, and you have a terrific homemade gift from your kitchen that your friends and family will love!
Have I convinced you? They’re so good and so easy… give them a try, and you’ll want a half dozen jars of this homemade butter-swim biscuit mix on your shelf ready to go on a whim, I promise.
Butter-Swim Biscuit Mix
Equipment
- 1 mixing bowl
- 1 small sifter or wire sieve to sift baking powder and soda
- measuring spoons and cups
- mason jars or ziploc bags to store premeasured dry ingredients for batch prep
- baking pan 8"x8", 9"x9", 7"x11", or 10" cast iron skillet or dutch oven
Ingredients
Dry Mix
- 2 ½ cups flour can substitute ½ whole wheat or up to ⅓ cornmeal or rye flour
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 2 tsp sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- ½ tsp baking soda
Wet Ingredients
- 1 stick butter melted in baking pan
- 2 cups buttermilk or add 2-3 tsp lemon juice or vinegar to whole milk
Instructions
Dry Mix Instructions:
- Get out all of your dry ingredients and jars or bags, if batch-prepping. If you are just making a single batch, start pre-heating the oven.
- For batch prep, measure out all of the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl or directly into your storage containers. When measuring the flour, fluff up the flour with the measuring cup and then scoop or spoon the flour into the measuring cup, rather than scooping with the cup directly into the compacted flour.
- Sift the baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and salt over the flour in the bowl or container and mix well with a whisk to incorporate before scooping into the jar or storage container (or put a lid on the jar or seal the baggie, and shake well to mix ingredients thoroughly).
- Label and date your containers and store in a cool, dry place. Use mix within one year (sooner if you used whole grain flours in your mix, or store mix in the freezer so the oils in the whole grains don't go rancid). You can store this longer in sealed mylar bags with oxygen absorbers, but longer term storage risks a denser or lower quality product as baking powder loses effectiveness over time.
To Bake:
- Place a baking dish (I bake these in an aluminum 7x11 pan, for a yield of 8 thick biscuits, but most people bake these in square 8x8 or 9x9 pans and get 9 biscuits) on a sheet tray in the oven, and add the butter. Preheat oven to 450℉.
- Note: The sheet tray is optional, but makes it easier to handle the pan without getting butter on your pot holders or oven towels, and more importantly, protects your oven from any spills for easier cleanup, especially if you are using one of the smaller pan sizes which may bubble over while they bake, so I recommend using one!
- Remove the pan from the oven once the butter melts. I set a timer for 5 minutes so I don't forget, but every oven is different, so check yours sooner until you know how long it takes! While the oven is heating and the butter is melting, make your batter.
- In a medium mixing bowl, combine the biscuit mix with the buttermilk. If you don't have buttermilk, you can acidify fresh "sweet" milk with a few teaspoons lemon or neutral vinegar- mix this first before adding to dry ingredients.
- Stir gently but well, folding with a rubber spatula or wooden spoon until wet and dry ingredients are incorporated. Do not overmix- you don't want to develop the gluten in the batter, just mix through. A few small lumps are ok (like a very thick pancake batter).
- Pour the thick biscuit batter into the prepared pan of melted butter, using a flexible spatula to scrape all the batter into the baking dish. Using the spatula or a butter knife, trace a grid in the batter to portion the biscuits. Don't worry if they're not fully separated, you just want to make a line of melted butter through the batter so they bake evenly and are easier to portion later.
- Bake the biscuits for 20-25 minutes (you may need to adjust baking time for your oven and size of pan). Remove from oven when they are golden brown and pass the skewer test (insert a clean bamboo or metal skewer into the center- when they are done, the skewer may be buttery or moist but not coated in batter or sticky dough).
- While biscuits are still hot, use a thin metal spatula or butterknife to re-trace the lines you made before baking, to fully separate your biscuits.
- Like all biscuits, these are best piping hot out of the oven, but also can be made ahead and gently reheated. Store well-covered in the fridge or freezer.