This quick small batch biscuit recipe makes four tall, flaky biscuits. Perfect for a small group at breakfast or brunch. Ready in 30 minutes.
In my two-person household, small batch recipes are a lifesaver. This recipe is ready in half an hour and makes just four biscuits: Perfect when you're cooking for a few people and don't want to deal with leftovers.
To keep things ultra-simple, cut the dough into squares with a sharp knife: No biscuit cutter needed! Serve these homemade biscuits warm with your favorite spread (looking at you, crockpot strawberry jam!), top with sausage gravy, or use them as a base for delicious breakfast sandwiches.
Ingredients overview
Scroll to the recipe card below for a full ingredients list with exact quantities.
Great biscuits are mostly about technique, but we do want to highlight a few ingredient notes before you get started:
- Cold unsalted butter melts when it hits the oven and leaves small pockets in its wake, which gives our biscuits those beautiful flaky, pull-apart layers.
- Cold milk. We use 1% or 2% milk here to keep things simple; swap it for whole milk or buttermilk if you like.
- All purpose flour. For best results, measure your flour by weight with a kitchen scale.
- Baking soda and baking powder are our primary leavening agents. Look for aluminum-free versions (otherwise your biscuits may have a slight metallic taste)
Use cold ingredients
Use milk and butter straight from the fridge for best results. You can also measure ingredients ahead of time and store in the fridge (30-60 minutes) or freezer (10-15 minutes) before mixing the dough.
Substitutions and Variations
- Add mix-ins. Stir grated cheese, your favorite spices, or fresh chopped herbs (à la our herb biscuits) in with the dry ingredients.
- For sweeter, dessert-style biscuits, add a few teaspoons of granulated sugar or a drizzle of honey to the biscuit dough (you may need to adjust the amount of flour to get the right consistency).
- Brush the biscuit tops with a bit of melted butter or heavy cream just before baking for a glossier finish.
Step by step instructions
Whisk dry ingredients together in a medium mixing bowl. Use a pastry cutter to cut cold butter into the dough, then add milk and stir gently until the dough is not quite combined. It should look a bit crumbly and rough at this point!
If you don't have a pastry cutter, use clean hands to work the cold butter into the flour mixture. Work quickly to prevent the butter from melting!
Tip dough onto a lightly floured surface. Fold the dough over on itself 6-10 times: This will help build those flaky layers!
The dough will feel crumbly at first, but it will come together as you fold it. Gently pat it into a square shape, about one inch thick. Use a sharp knife to cut the dough into four squares.
Pro Tip: Work quickly and handle the dough as little as possible to help the dough stay cold!
Once cut, you should see a fair amount of texture around the sides of each biscuit. This is a good sign that your biscuits will bake up with nice, flakey layers!
Transfer the biscuit squares to a small sheet pan lined with parchment paper, leaving a few inches of space between each piece. Place in a preheated oven and bake until golden brown.
Pro Tip: We tend to use a small baking sheet, but you can also bake these biscuits in a small casserole dish or cast iron skillet.
Four tips for excellent biscuits
- Keep ingredients cold. The cold butter pieces in this dough melt in the oven, creating pockets of space that become pull-apart layers. Use very cold milk and butter, and handle the dough as little as possible.
- Use a kitchen scale. Measuring ingredients by weight with a kitchen scale is much more reliable than measuring by volume (with cups). For best results, use a kitchen scale and follow the gram measurements in the recipe below.
- Preheat your oven. Make sure your oven is fully up to temperature before putting your biscuits in. If the oven isn't hot enough, the butter will melt too slowly and the biscuits won't rise properly.
- The most important ingredient in baking is PRACTICE. Don't worry if your biscuits don't turn out perfectly the first time!
FAQs
Baking soda and baking powder are an important duo: Baking soda reacts with acid (in this case, the small amount of acid found in baking powder) to make the biscuits rise and achieve their flaky, fluffy texture.
The soda + powder combo also helps baked goods brown, which gives our finished biscuits a richer, deeper color. (You can also see this technique in action in our Banana Muffins, Apple Butter Coffee Cake, and Pumpkin Bread!)
We tested this recipe without baking soda, and the biscuits were significantly less browned even after an additional two minutes in the oven (see photo below). Our testers much prefer the combo of baking soda + baking powder in biscuit recipes. 
If you'd like sharper, more uniform edges on your biscuits, we recommend trimming a thin layer off the outer edges of the dough square before you cut the individual biscuits (see photo below).
Set the trimmed edges aside while you cut your biscuits into shape; tuck these extra pieces under each biscuit once they're on the baking sheet. You'll have sharper edges with a more uniform rise and uniform layers all around.
For more uniform biscuits, you can also use a biscuit cutter here instead of cutting the biscuits into squares. 
Serve these biscuits with your favorite jam (try our slow cooker blueberry jam or crockpot strawberry jam), a scoop of blackberry sauce, honey butter, or fruit butter (try this easy apple butter recipe, a homemade peach butter, or our pear butter recipe).
You can also use these biscuits as a base for eggs benedict (try our favorite avocado eggs benedict with a quick immersion blender hollandaise!) or a hearty breakfast sandwich.
Yes. Use cold coconut oil and canned coconut milk in lieu of butter and milk, respectively (see a tutorial in our recipe for coconut milk biscuits!) The coconut oil mimics the rich feel and fall-apart texture that butter lends to a traditional biscuit, but we promise the biscuits don't taste coconut-y.
If your biscuits look more "melted" than flaky, it's usually because 1) the oven wasn't hot enough yet or, more often, 2) the dough was too warm when they went into the oven.
For best results, make sure the ingredients - especially the butter and milk - are very cold when you mix them into the dough. Also, work the dough quickly and handle it as little as possible so the heat from your hands doesn't warm the butter up too much. It's also important to make sure the oven is fully preheated before you put the biscuits in - if the oven isn't hot enough, they won't rise properly.
And don't forget: As with many things, the most important ingredient for great homemade biscuits is practice. If they aren't perfect the first time, make some notes about what went well, read back through this post and the FAQs, and give them another try!
A metallic taste can occur when you use leavening agents - like baking powder - that contain aluminum.
For best results, look for aluminum-free baking powder. If you're particularly sensitive to the metallic taste of some leavening agents, we recommend adding a teaspoon or two of acid (lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, etc) to your biscuit dough: The extra acid helps create the chemical reaction that makes these biscuits rise, which can help eliminate that metallic taste.
Yes! These small batch biscuits hold up very well in the freezer. Freeze in an airtight container for up to 3 months, then defrost for a few hours on the counter when you're ready to use them. Reheat biscuits in a warm oven for a few minutes to bring them back to life and help them feel fresh, even after freezing.
Yes! Add an extra tablespoon or two of milk to this biscuit dough to make it a bit looser, then drop it onto your prepared baking sheet and bake as directed.
🎥 Step by step video
📖 Recipe
Small Batch Biscuits
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 12 minutes
- Total Time: 27 minutes
- Yield: 4 biscuits 1x
- Category: Breakfast
- Cuisine: American
Description
This quick small batch biscuit recipe makes just 4 biscuits! Perfect for a simple breakfast or brunch for two.
Ingredients
- 57 grams unsalted butter, cut into small cubes (about ¼ cup, or ½ stick)
- 115 grams milk (about ½ cup)
- 150 grams all purpose flour, plus extra for dusting (about 1 ¼ cups when measured correctly by scooping and leveling)
- 7 grams aluminum-free baking powder (2 teaspoons)
- 2 grams baking soda (½ teaspoon)
- 2 grams kosher salt (½ teaspoon)
Instructions
- Heat oven to 425° Fahrenheit.
- Line a small baking sheet with parchment paper (or use a nonstick baking mat).
- In a large mixing bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and kosher salt.
- Use a pastry cutter to cut cold butter pieces into the dry ingredients, until you have a coarse, sandy mixture.
- Add cold milk to flour mixture; stir until everything is not quite combined. The dough should be crumbly, shaggy, and fairly loose.
- Lightly flour a cutting board; tip the dough onto the floured surface. Gently pat the dough together until it begins to hold its shape, then fold it over on itself several times and pat it into a 1-inch thick square.
- Cut dough into quarters with a sharp knife.
- Place biscuits on the prepared baking sheet, leaving an inch or two of space between each one. Bake at 425°F for 10-12 minutes, until biscuits are golden brown.
Notes
Use a kitchen scale. Measuring ingredients like flour by volume (with a measuring cup) is notoriously unreliable: For best results, use a kitchen scale and measure your ingredients by weight using the gram measurements above.
Keep your dough as cold as possible. Small pieces of cold butter melt away in the oven, leaving flaky, pull-apart layers. Use very cold butter and milk when you mix the biscuit dough, and work quickly to keep the butter from softening too much as you shape the biscuits.
The most important ingredient is PRACTICE. It can take a few tries to get the hang of mixing and shaping biscuit dough. Don't worry if they aren't perfect the first time around!
No pastry cutter? Use clean hands to cut the butter into the dry ingredients.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 biscuit
- Calories: 250
- Sugar: 1.6 g
- Sodium: 346.6 mg
- Fat: 12 g
- Carbohydrates: 30.9 g
- Protein: 5 g
- Cholesterol: 31.2 mg
Cindy
Found your recipe while looking for a small batch. These biscuits turned out perfect, thank you. April 30 2026🇨🇦
Cathy
They came out perfect! The only thing I did different was grate the butter and freeze it for a few minutes. Super easy, yummy, and fast! Thank you!!
Rhonda @ Life As A Strawberry
So glad. We have some recipes that grate the butter and some that cut it in - both work beautifully!
Nick
Also, thank you for the recipe. I made biscuits once in the past (a full recipe), and they were too much of a hassle for me and they didn’t come out the way I had hoped they would. But your small batch recipe worked out just perfect and tasted phenomenal. The only thing different I did was immediately brush the biscuits when they came out of the oven with melted butter. *Chefs kiss*
Rhonda @ Life As A Strawberry
We love melted butter on top and are glad you loved the recipe! Biscuits should be easy to make but some recipes can make them difficult. If you need a 'full batch' try some of our other biscuit recipes for equally easy biscuits.
Stephanie
My family and I cannot get enough of these biscuits. So simple and delicious. I used a kitchen scale for measuring & found this is such a reliable method!
Not only do I love the food, I did a little more reading on your background and love your mission behind recipes, accessibility, and understanding the complexities of food (abundance/scarity/etc). Thank you for a wonderful recipe and insight into your education!
Mary Rodgers
This recipe came out as predicted, it was delicious. It was easy to put together, only took a few minutes. The layers of butter made for little pockets of flaky deliciousness. I will certainly be making this again.
Rhonda @ Life As A Strawberry
Thank you for leaving us a review! We love these biscuits - so easy, flaky, and delicious.
Lauren
This recipe is delicious 🤤 I just started making homemade biscuits and looked up a small batch recipe, came across this one. My family loves it!! We add sugar, honey and buttermilk as mentioned below the recipe and they're scrumptious🤤will be on repeat! Thank you🥰
Rhonda @ Life As A Strawberry
Homemade biscuits are easy to make and delicious - glad you and your family are loving them!
Anjelica Webb
Easy recipe to follow! They were yummy. I don’t have a pastry cutter but saw using a cheese grater works just as well! Just make sure you listen when they say uses very cold/hard butter.
Rhonda @ Life As A Strawberry
So glad you loved these! We try to give as many notes and tips as we can (without overwhelming you) - this recipe is "USE COLD BUTTER" lol. That's what helps with those flaky layers.