Widespread and well known, Biscuits and Gravy, or B&G, is a Southern classic. What began as a breakfast of necessity, with origins as far back as the Revolutionary War, Biscuits and Gravy is now considered a Southern staple that’s easily found in breakfast and brunch spots around the USA. Boasting a complicated and long rooted history, B&G’s full history can be read here, in an article from the Washington Post.
Biscuits and Gravy is one of my favorite breakfast foods, and that’s really saying something because breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. I take breakfast very seriously. You can ask any of my friends. I love breakfast. Unfortunately, friends (we’re friends, right?), Chloe didn’t try this one. She’s been on a diet recently (we had a lengthy argument about the dangers of a keto diet, but she’s stubborn), and Chloe told me to give it a 9/10 because she could tell by the singing and dancing I did while eating it that it was a tasty dish.
I adapted the biscuit recipe from the Sugar Spun Run’s Easy Homemade Biscuit recipe. The only thing I changed was swapping the unsalted butter for salted butter. I don't understand what the big deal with unsalted butter is among pastry chefs? In my opinion, unsalted butter it gross. I use salted butter because I like flavor.
Also, I adapted the gravy recipe from an Allrecipes article, Easy Sausage and Gravy Biscuits. I added a little more flavor to this recipe as well because, as I said before, I like flavor.
I have to confess something to you all (since were friends now), I ruined the beautiful, laminated layers on my biscuits by rolling it out too much. I’m telling you this because I care about you and I want you to learn from my mistakes. This will be explained further in my recipe notes below, but you can see in the photos that the biscuits are flatties ☹. Now, I realize I made a mistake, but I think we can work through this. It doesn’t have to be the end of what is now a beautiful friendship.
Recipe Notes
So, if you skipped past the first part (your loss—now we can’t be friends), this is where I will impart my wisdom on the art of making beautiful, fluffy biscuits.
Making the Biscuits:
After you’ve done the first 2 steps and combined all the dry ingredients together, you’ll want to take your frozen butter out. Since you only need 6 tablespoons of butter, what I like to do is score the outside of the butter stick so that the wrapper is still attached to the last two tablespoons. This way, you have a mess-free handle for the next step where you grate your butter into the flour mixture.
Next up is adding the butter. Traditionally, you would cut the butter into the flour mixture, which is a very painstaking and labor intensive process where you grind cold butter into flour with a pastry cutter. Listen to me carefully, don’t do that. It’s so much work! Use a grater to get the chunks of cold butter that you need to create the beautiful airy pockets inside of the biscuits. You need these cold pieces of butter because as the butter melts in the oven, it leaves behind the trademark holes inside of your biscuits that make them flaky. This is why it’s so important to keep your butter cold! If it melts before it hits the oven you’ll miss out on the buttery, flaky goodness.
After you’ve cut the butter into the flour and added the milk, you dump it out on the counter and attempt to get the dough to come together. It probably won’t look like dough yet, just clumpy flour. If that’s the case, give it a light knead with your hands until it just comes together and roughly shape it into a rectangle. Don’t overwork this dough. I can’t stress this enough—if you do, you’ll melt the butter and then it’s no good. The dough rectangle’s height depends on your own personal preference, and on how many biscuits you wanted to make. Next, you’ll want to cut your dough rectangle into four even segments and stack them on top of each other, like so.
This last step is where I messed up my own biscuits, so be warned, this is a critical step. Roll out your stacked dough into another rectangle but be careful! If you roll it out too much, you’ll lose the layers you just painstakingly created when you stacked up your dough. Lastly, cut your dough into six even sized pieces and bake.
I wanted to make a quick note about biscuit shape. Traditionally, biscuits are cut into circles, but you’ll waste dough like that, so I choose to make them into squares. (I’m also not big on conformity so if you want to be a sheep and make round biscuits, that’s your prerogative…)
Biscuits and Gravy
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 12 minutes
Total Time: 27 minutes
Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients for Biscuits:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
6 Tbsp salted butter, very cold
3/4 cup whole milk (sub buttermilk, or 2% milk, if preferred)
Ingredients for Sausage Gravy:
1 (9 oz) package ground breakfast sausage of your choice
2 tsp red pepper flakes (optional)
1 tsp ground fennel seed (optional)
1 tsp ground sage (optional)
1/4 cup flour
2 1/2 cups milk
Salt and pepper to taste
Directions for Biscuits:
Preheat oven to 424 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a baking sheet with Parchment paper and set aside.
Combine flour, baking powder, sugar and salt in a large bowl and mix well.
Take frozen butter and grate directly into the flour mixture, then stir until butter is coated. (See recipe notes for more detailed instructions)
Add milk and stir until the dough just begins to come together.
Transfer dough onto a well-floured surface. Using your hands, work the dough into a rectangle.
Cut your dough into 4 even pieces and stack the pieces on top of each other. Carefully, so that you maintain the layers, roll the stacked dough out into another rectangle.
Cut the dough out into your desired shape, circles or squares.
Bake for 12 minutes or until the tops are just beginning to brown.
Optionally brush with melted, salted butter.
Directions for Sausage Gravy:
While waiting for your biscuits to bake, heat a large, nonstick saucepan to a medium heat and begin cooking the sausage until cooked through. Then add optional spices and seasoning to the sausage and cook until fragrant.
Stir in flour and cook for 1 minute.
Gradually add milk, allowing the mixture to thicken before adding more milk. Repeat this process until all the milk is incorporated and begins to boil.
Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer for another 2 minutes, stirring constantly.
Season with salt and pepper to taste.
To serve, split the biscuit in half and top with gravy.
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