Shortening is not necessary for making American biscuits. Several fats are used, including vegetable oil, but the fat most appearing in recipes is butter. Solid or semisolid fats are most often used to make American style biscuits.
Pull up any two recipes for biscuits and you’ll likely find surprisingly different techniques and ingredient lists. For such a simple food, biscuit recipes can be startlingly complex. From various fats and liquids to flours and leaveners, you’ll find a different biscuit for just about every baker in the South. But which of these techniques and ingredients really make a difference in the final result? Are there some fats that are better than others? This week, we’ll be exploring all kinds of biscuit science to find out.
Butter, as we know, is a dairy product made from churned cream. In the United States, it must be at least 80 percent butterfat, with the rest of its composition being made up of water and milk solids. In Europe, butter has a slightly higher amount of fat; anywhere from 82 percent to 85 percent is common. And these numbers matter — the more water in your butter, the greater the opportunity for it to mingle with flour to form gluten and the faster it will soften at room temperature. While these facts may not matter so much if you’re making brownies, they really do make a difference when it comes to things like biscuits.
Have you eaten a biscuit in an old-school Southern cafeteria? Or perhaps a few from Cracker Barrel? Good. You’ve eaten a shortening biscuit. Far cheaper and easier to work with than butter, shortening is a frequent ingredient in many Southern restaurant biscuits. What we think of today as shortening is made from hydrogenated vegetable oil and became popular in the mid-20th century as a replacement for animal fats. (Fun fact: Shortening used to mean “animal fat!”) Shortening, unlike butter, is pretty much entirely fat; it doesn’t contain any water or (flavorful) milk solids.
This is all to say that butter can be a little tricky to work with. When it is incorporated properly into biscuit dough, it will accomplish three main things in the baked biscuits: create pockets of steam to form those layers, bind a little with the flour to create structure, and add sweet buttery flavor to the final result. These biscuits, when made well, are flaky, rather than crumbly and soft. Butter biscuits also tend to have a deeply browned top and bottom — those milk solids in the butter contain sugars, caramelize and brown fairly quickly in a hot oven. This is why it’s a great idea to always brush your biscuits with butter, even if you’re using another fat in the dough.
No matter the biscuit recipe, you’ll read a long and drawn out argument as to why butter or shortening is the superior fat. I’m willing to bet that there are plenty of readers who fall into bth of these camps when it comes to biscuit baking; I, personally, have always preferred butter. But until recently, I hadn’t actually taken the time to compare these ingredients to see what they actually do in my biscuits. Here’s a breakdown:
Choosing your favorite texture Share
How do you like your biscuits? Tall and tender, with a golden-brown bottom? Or do you like them a bit flatter and more sturdy, so you can toast and slather them with jam? As the baker, you get to decide how to adjust the fats and liquids in biscuits so they have just the right texture and taste.
When you start with a foolproof recipe like our Buttermilk Biscuits, it’s easy to customize the final result. While it’s certainly important to follow recipes closely while baking, you have some flexibility when it comes to choosing certain ingredients.
Lets start with the base of any good biscuit — the fat. Our original recipe calls for 4 to 6 tablespoons of butter or shortening. The higher amount will give you a richer, more buttery crumb. I decide to split the difference for testing purposes and use 5 tablespoons (2 1/2 ounces).
Whenever we talk about fats in baking, we always hear from a portion of “lard-core bakers” (people who are dedicated to using lard). Customer feedback is something we take seriously here at King Arthur Flour, so well incorporate lard (as well as coconut oil) into our fat testing.
The butter version rises the highest — look at those flaky layers! The shortening biscuit is slightly shorter and a bit drier, too. Butter contains a bit of water, which helps create steam and gives baked goods a boost. (We discovered this to be true in our other explorations of butter vs. shortening, as well.)
The coconut oil biscuits are even shorter than the shortening biscuits, and the lard version is the squattest. Neither the coconut nor lard variations win the beauty contest, either. Theyre a bit soft looking and dont have that desirable, craggy exterior that makes biscuits so appealing.
In addition to rising the highest, the butter version is also the brownest.
Why? Butter contains milk solids, which include sugars that caramelize at high temperatures. Shortening, coconut oil, and lard are all 100% fat. They contain no milk solids or sugars, so they dont caramelize in the same way. Still tasty, just less golden brown.
This preliminary finding of what adjusting fat in biscuits can do is exciting, but its also just the beginning. On to liquids!
Just as important as the fat is the liquid used to make your biscuits. Our Buttermilk Biscuit recipe offers the choice of using milk or buttermilk. Buttermilk is known for making biscuits tender and adding a zippy tang, so we used that for this test.
Choices are important in baking, so well also test variations with full-fat sour cream, half & half, and heavy cream. (You can also use plain, full-fat Greek yogurt in place of sour cream if you like.)
Each liquid has a different amount of water, fat, milk solids, and acidity — all of which can change the flavor and texture of your biscuits.
To see the effects of each liquid, we make a batch of all-butter biscuits and change only the liquid —testing buttermilk, sour cream, heavy cream, and half & half. (We leave milk out of these tests since milk and half & half should yield very similar results, with the half & half biscuits just slightly more tender).
It’s surprising what changing just one ingredient can do! The heavy cream biscuit is slightly paler than the other three, while the half & half version is the evenly brown. The buttermilk and sour cream versions are somewhere in the middle in terms of color: nicely caramelized around the edges.
You might be wondering, well, what about the height? Surprisingly, all four biscuits are about the same height, with the buttermilk version just a smidge taller than the rest. Turns out that fat affects the height and flakiness of biscuits, while liquid impacts the color more noticeably.
Now we have a basic idea of what to expect when adjusting the fat and liquid in biscuits. Time to personalize your biscuits and choose your favorite combination!
Theres a bit of a baking frenzy in the test kitchen as I try out all the possible combinations of fat and liquid in biscuits. Heres what we find:
Shortening: A bit less flaky than some of the other versions but very tender — especially the heavy cream version: think melt-in-your-mouth texture. None of these has stand-out flavor though; theyre a bit bland. Still, not bad overall.
Coconut oil: Slightly sweet flavor (though not coconut-y), most similar to butter in flavor. The texture of some of the higher-fat versions (heavy cream and sour cream) is a bit chewy/gummy. The best combination from this batch is coconut oil and buttermilk: delicate crumb and creamy flavor.
Lard: Savory aroma with a distinct taste (and aftertaste). In full disclosure, Im a vegetarian so some trustworthy employee-owners taste this batch. They think these biscuits might be nice with a sauce (gravy) or spread. The lard and half & half version seem to be the favorite here.
Since lard is such a rich ingredient on its own, it might be good to combine it with another fat, like butter, to balance flavor.
Butter: Slightly sweet, caramelized flavor; nicely browned exterior. All the liquid combinations produce fluffy, springy texture with an impressive rise. The butter and heavy cream version makes a quintessential biscuit, suitable for all occasions.
But the one I cant get enough of? Butter and buttermilk biscuits. Theyre delightful in all ways youd expect a biscuit to be, and a little lighter than their heavy cream counterpart. Butter/buttermilk biscuits are flaky, creamy, and downright comforting.
Just because my taste buds prefer a classic butter and buttermilk biscuit doesnt mean yours will, too.
Dont be afraid to adjust the fats and liquids in biscuits the next time youre called into the kitchen to whip up a batch.
Gluten-free bakers, feel empowered to experiment, too. Use our Gluten-Free Measure for Measure Flour to replace the all-purpose flour in our Buttermilk Biscuit recipe. Adjust the fats and liquids until you find the perfect balance of flavor and texture.
You might be surprised to find what your favorite combination turns out to be. Once you experiment with the fats and liquids in biscuits, let us know which you like best in comments, below.
Thanks to fellow employee-owner Seann Cram for taking the photographs for this post. Share
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Is it better to use butter or shortening for biscuits?
FAQ
Can you use butter instead of Crisco in biscuits?
What happens if you use butter instead of shortening?
What is a substitute for shortening in biscuits?
What does butter do to biscuits?
Can you substitute butter in biscuits?
Butter has very simple substitutions, and many of which are great vegan options! You can still make buttery biscuits, even if you are not using any butter at all! There are many different ways that you can substitute butter out of any recipes, not just in biscuits.
What are the best substitutes for butter?
The substitute that you might want to use depends on what you are using butter for. In baking you can use any fat such as olive oil, nut butters, or even avocados. In baking you can also substitute non-fats for butter such as Greek yogurt, mashed bananas, pumpkin puree, or even applesauce. For replacing butter as a spread, you can use any fat, hummus, avocado, nut butter, or cheese. For cooking, canola oil can be a great sub, or avocado oil is also good because it has a high smoke point.
Can you make biscuits with cold butter?
You’ll need really cold butter to begin with. You might even want to stick it in the freezer an hour or so before you make the biscuits. The colder the better and the easier it will be to grate. Place the grated butter into the bowl with the flour. Use a fork or spoon to “cut” the butter into the flour.
Can you make buttery biscuits if you don’t use butter?
You can still make buttery biscuits, even if you are not using any butter at all! There are many different ways that you can substitute butter out of any recipes, not just in biscuits. The most important thing to look for when you are trying to find a substitution for butter is having an added fat.