Easy Amish Buttermilk Biscuits

Ah, the lowly biscuit. It's a food that doesn't get a whole lot of respect. But what is better than a flaky buttermilk biscuit sliced in half with scrambled eggs sandwiched inside? Or a crumbly biscuit drowned with meaty or milky gravy? I mean, in a pinch, those Pillsbury Grands will do, but there's nothing better than a buttery scratch-made biscuit. And in Amish kitchens, biscuits are food royalty because of their simplicity and versatility.

You can use all-purpose flour with these easy Amish buttermilk biscuits. No need for a special bread flour.

🙋 FAQ

What if I don't have any buttermilk, are there any substitutions?

Yes! If you don't have buttermilk, you can use various combinations of milk and vinegar or milk and lemon juice. Check out all the various homemade substitutions you can make here.

I didn't realize it at the time, but the best biscuits I've ever had were probably from a place called "Ma and Pa's", a local restaurant/general store in the tiny smudge of a town called West Elkton, Ohio.  It was run by a man named George who kept a handgun behind the counter and made biscuits from scratch every morning.  A group of regulars came in every morning for coffee, biscuits, and gossip.  A couple of customers even had their own key to the store if George was running a little late.   George's biscuits were melt-in-your-mouth amazing and I wish I had eaten a lot more of them that morning. I was there as a reporter writing a feature about small-towns. Super biscuits are one of the amazing finds one can make in a tiny town.

We used homemade buttermilk for these biscuits. The flavoring that buttermilk infuses into baking makes it like gold for most Amish bakers. Homemade buttermilk never goes to waste, infusing amazing taste into so many treats: cookies, breads, and even as a brine and baste for chicken.

Here's homemade buttermilk doing its thing to the flour.

SIGH, there are so many kinds of biscuits: hard-as-a-hockey puck biscuits, soft-as-pillow-biscuits, sawdust-dry biscuits, swimming in butter biscuits, and on and on. I like my biscuits somewhere in the middle: flaky, buttery, versatile.

This is an old, old biscuit recipe that comes to us from the Berne, Indiana Amish community. There Berne community of Indiana has baking that is heavily Swiss influenced but also heavily Great Depression influenced and these biscuits are really easy to make on a budget. These biscuits are great drowning in gravy, but they are are also super with butter and jelly.

👩‍🍳 Ingredients

3 cups flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
1 stick (½ cup) butter, melted

📋 Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400 and grease baking sheet or use parchment paper.
2. Combine dry ingredients, then add buttermilk and melted butter, mix until just combined, then knead with hands into a  uniform dough
3. Drop onto greased baking sheet.
4. Bake for 10-15 min.

👩‍🍳 More Amish Biscuit Recipes

Easy Buttery Biscuits
Triple Butter Biscuit

Mrs. Mast's Emergency Biscuits

Sky High Biscuits

🖨️ Full Recipe