Can you call yourself a Southern cook if you don’t know how to make biscuits??
Biscuits was BY FAR the most difficult bread to figure out using 100% freshly milled wheat.
Please, PLEASE do not attempt this recipe without buttermilk! It just won’t work. Sifting the flour is also necessary as well!
Thanks to Jill Winger’s recipe from “The Prairie Homestead Cookbook”, I was able to have an excellent recipe to convert to freshly milled wheat.
It took a bit of trial-by-error, but I did it.
Now you can pass by Hardees knowing you can rival them at home in a MUCH healthier way!
It’s practically guilt-free biscuits. Who could ask for me in life?
Soft and FLUFFY 100% Whole Wheat Biscuits
This is an adaptation of Jill Winger from the Prairie Homestead Cookbook's amazing biscuit recipe. A few tweaks were needed in order to convert this to 100% freshly milled wheat.
Equipment
- Biscuit Cutter
- Flour Sifter
Ingredients
- 8 cups freshly milled soft white wheat flour
- 2 TB baking powder
- 2 tsp fine sea salt
- 4 TB sugar
- 1 cup cold butter cold lard may also be used
- 2-3 cups cold cultured buttermilk
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 450 degrees F
- Mill 6 cups soft white wheat berries to make about 8 cups freshly milled flour. Sift 8 cups flour.
- In bowl or mixer, combine all dry ingredients and gently mix.
- Add cut up butter or lard to dry ingredients. Mix with pastry cutter, two butter knives, etc until butter is mixed in to flour and resembles small pebbles.
- If using a mixer, switch to dough hook. Add about 1 to 1 1/2 cups of cold buttermilk. Gradually add a little more buttermilk until a soft dough forms (See video for details)
- Roll out dough to about 1/2inch thick. Gently fold over in half. Cut biscuits with biscuit cutter or glass.
- Place on greased cookie sheet and bake for about 12-15 minutes until golden on top.
- Melt about 2 TB butter, brush on top of baked biscuits
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!
It would be so fun to make these but the sugar is difficult. Do you think honey would work?
Thank you!
I really don’t know about honey. You can just omit the sugar if you like. It’s not much at all!
Loved this recipe.. Tasted great with sausage gravy! Planning to freeze the extra biscuits for later. Please keep your recipe coming!
Ah yes sausage gravy and biscuits is THE BEST!!! So glad y’all enjoyed it!
This sounds like a good option to try. I’ve been using my biscuit recipe from my Encyclopedia of American Cooking, but you’re right….fresh milled grain is an entirely different medium! I’m still playing around with the ingredients, and I don’t use dairy. I also notice in your recipe, a different ratio of butter to flour than the one in my EAC….I’ll have to try that!
Keep posting your ideas, trials and errors, they are helpful for us newbies. I’ve only been doing it 8 months and I learn something new every time! But, OH….the benefits of fresh-milled grain are amazing!
I have tried this recipe and bread recipe. Neither turn out! Bisciuts taste ok, i had to keep adding liquid because the dough was so dry and still didnt turn out right! Same with bread! Heavy heavy dough!
There can be many factors. I suggest watching my video about the most common bread fails to see if this addresses your issues! https://youtu.be/l8wem9yUYd0
Felicia, some of your links on the site don’t work. We tried the pancake recipe this morning and it was awesome. But when you, click on the pancake recipe, it takes you to the biscuits. Love the websiie and the youtube video.. So good watching someone who loves the Lord and brings scripture into living well.
Oh weird, I will check on that! Thank you!
This works!
Been trying to convert my favorite ‘pre-milling flour’ biscuit recipe and haven’t been sucessful until watching your video and adapting to your recipe. We make butter weekly so I’ve been using my leftover buttermilk. For this recipe it’s not quite enough, so I add approx 1/2c whipping cream to make up the difference. My family raves over these biscuits as being the best I’ve ever made. Thanks for upping my biscuit making game!!!
Wonderful!!!
Have to tried freezing them? Either cooked or as dough?
I have not. But I think other people have said they have had success freezing the cooked biscuits and then just reheating when they want one.
I’d had given up on biscuits since we couldn’t get Lily’s flour after move to CA. Recently started milling and tried these tonight. They are amazing. We’re back in biscuits around here. Thanks for your work in these.
woot!!! Life is happy again lol
Will this recipe work with barley or spelt?
I was wondering if this recipe can be made with other flours such as kamut, spelt, or barley?
Probably spelt. Kamut is a tricky grain to work with. Expect it to be more tacky. Not sure about barley!
Felicia I just love you I am a 67 year old man makes my own sausage and meats makes my own breads a lot of your recipes. I love you have figured it out for home milling I make my dog treats from home milling Lotta your information has been great. I use your tortilla recipe a lot and I use your honey bread recipe every week or two times a week. My dog loves it with honey on it and I eat it every day for my breakfast.❤️ PS I am definitely love do the biscuits. They are great with my homemade sausages. And gravy. My gravy is made from whole milled flour and I sift it to get it to thicken properly lots of love God bless you and keep up the good work.
Made these tonight to go with dinner, and they were delicious. Made sure to sift the freshly milled wheat and used half lard, half butter. Needed about 1 1/2 cups of buttermilk. Just wonderful! Thanks!
I’m just starting to attempt using fresh milled flour. I’m a little confused about the 8 cups of flour in the recipe. I normally use 2 cups. I notice the biscuits don’t really rise much more than the thickness that they are cut??
The recipe is correct. Make sure you watch the video for further explanation and technique!
Taste was great. I should have used baking sheet instead of round pan. I sifted flour twice for fluffier results.
These are delicious!! Thank you for the recipe. Question: can you freeze them after you cook them?
I’ve never tried it. Personally, I think I rather freeze them before they cook and then just pull however many I need from the freezer and bake. If you try it either way, let me know how it works out!
Could I make these sourdough? I like to ferment grains before eating
These were delicious and I found they made more than what the recipe says. I halved it and made 15 pretty good size biscuits. Everyone in my family loved them. Even my husband who isn’t sold on 100% wheat baked goods said they were really excellent.
Why will it not work with buttermilk? Could a dairy free version of buttermilk work? I need to be dairy free for my breastfed infant who isn’t even tolerating when I use raw A2.
I have found this recipe works THE BEST with cultured buttermilk. You could possibly use another milk, just don’t offend the South by calling them Buttermilk biscuits lol
It’s just me and my hubby – surely doing ½ recipe will work, and I am used to using a pastry blender to cut in butter and shortening, so I’ll try that. How much buttermilk do you think I should start with?
I would just half everything.
I was so hopeful for this recipe to turn out. I am new to FMF and I have never made homemade biscuits. I did take the time to watch the video before attempting (thank you for all the tips).
The recipe and process was pretty easy. My sifter was different than yours (a hand squeeze type), it seemed to sift it finer, but maybe the holes were too big because I didn’t have any of the bran left out. I used the pastry cutter to mix in the butter with the dry ingredients. I have a Kitchen Aid mixer and used the dough hook to mix it with the buttermilk. Had to use 1 3/4 c buttermilk to get it all incorporated, but it definitely kneaded the dough longer than yours.
My biscuits tasted good (especially when they were warm from the oven), but they were very dense and not light and fluffy. Any ideas or suggestions on what I may have done wrong?
You may have kneaded it too much or been to harsh with the dough. Gotta be gentle with biscuit dough!
I’m wondering if you have made these into a cinnamon raisin biscuit before? Would there be any changes other than adding raisins and icing instead of butter? This idea popped into my head today and I can’t stop thinking about it.
I haven’t, but feel free to try and let us know how it goes!
Hi Felicia, first let me say that these biscuits are so good! I’m from Southern Mississippi and believe me, I know my biscuits lol. This recipe is definitely my new favorite.
I know that this has been asked before, but have you tried freezing the raw cut out dough yet?
I haven’t tried it, but I see no reason why it couldn’t be frozen!
These were delicious! I had more than our family needed, so I decided to try freezing the extra uncooked biscuits. When it was time to use the frozen biscuits, I followed the original baking instructions but added a few more minutes to the cook time. The frozen biscuits were *almost* as good as the fresh, and definitely better than any canned or frozen biscuits from the store.
Ah good to know!!!! Thanks!
These were wonderful!! Thank you!! I was about to give up on my sprouted soft wheat for yummy biscuits! Very excited to find this recipe!
🙂
P.S. I did not sift and they were still fabulous!
I’m making this in the morning and wanted to ask how much flour did you end up with after sifting? Thank you!
I think it’s usually around 7 – 7.5 cups. Not sure though lol I never measure.
Felicia, I’m an “old Hillbilly” whose grandmother made similar biscuits. I have a question (please don’t think I am dumb, rather ignorant: do you freeze the biscuits uncooked?
Yes, if I was to freeze them, I would cut them out and freeze them before baking. Then pull out however many you want, let it thaw out a bit, and bake as normal!
This recipe was so good that my husband didn’t know it was fresh whole wheat – he thought it was AP flour
Win!!!
I’m wondering if anyone has converted the amount of wheat berries in grams to make these biscuits?
My NC gma had 10 kids and no money for much of any dairy, let alone buttermilk. She simply put a tbsp of vinegar in her cup then filled it with milk, let it sit for a few min and used baking soda in the dry mix. She made biscuits every single day. For roughly 30 yrs. Then often for another 25. Her biscuits were awesome and I make mine w/fake buttermilk too. I do buttermilk pancakes the same way.
I’ve been doing fresh milled flour since 1995
Kathy
I only have hard white and hard red! Can I use either ? I have to mill it with my kitchen aid attachment–I decided to start out with that since it was less expensive not knowing if I’d do this allot! Very slow –I made your strawberry muffin recipe – which the bottoms burned because I use a silicone muffin “pan”. They were really good with the hard white –can’t look back so maybe that’s what you called for. Anyway, excited to try other recipes.
I would use SOFT white wheat with these biscuits. You could try hard white, but they may not be as soft and fluffy.
I have successfully made this recipe many times without any adjustments. I LOVE these biscuits! They are wonderful. I make a gravy and serve to my family who eats them up and eatcthem plain or with jam.
made these this moring sept .24loved them I just started using freshly milled flour.will make these forever.