Easy Sourdough Biscuits Recipe - Tender Homemade Biscuits! (2024)

FAQs

Why are my homemade biscuits tough? ›

Kneading too much and overhandling biscuit, shortcake and scone dough overdevelops the gluten in the flour, resulting in a chewy, tough baked product.

With biscuits, however, the goal is to avoid this chewiness. So, by adding hard-boiled egg yolk to a biscuit recipe, you'll thwart the formation of gluten, thereby resulting in a buttery, flakey crumb that'll dissolve in your mouth.

Take the biscuits and wrap them in a plastic cling film or zip pouch to make sure there's space for moisture to seep in. Lastly, put them in an airtight box and store inside a refrigerator to enjoy crunchy biscuits each time.

Kneading more makes the texture slightly tougher.

like, you can notice the difference between 15 and 45 kneads, but barely.

If your biscuits are too tough…

Biscuit dough is moist and sticky, so much so that it may seem too wet after you've added all your flour. If you do think this about your dough, fight the urge to add more dry ingredients — dough that isn't wet enough will bake into a hard, dry biscuit.

Use Cold Butter for Biscuits

For flaky layers, use cold butter. When you cut in the butter, you have coarse crumbs of butter coated with flour. When the biscuit bakes, the butter will melt, releasing steam and creating pockets of air. This makes the biscuits airy and flaky on the inside.

Binding. In cakes, muffins, cookies, pancakes, waffles, doughs and many other baked goods, whole eggs are used as a binder. Eggs are natural binders, helping hold all other baking ingredients together and increasing the viscosity of batters and doughs.

As the biscuits rise, the carbon dioxide gas expands, creating pressure on the dough. This pressure can cause the dough to collapse without proper support. Cream of Tartar helps stabilize the dough structure, ensuring the biscuits maintain their shape and rise uniformly.

Adding eggs to a dough makes it softer and richer,more like challah or sandwich bread. There's nothing wrong with that, and you can certainly roll it out and make a flatbread with it, but it won't have the chew of a good pizza dough, and the bottom won't get as crisp.

Cover the dough loosely with a kitchen towel and allow it to rest for 30 minutes. Gently pat out the dough some more, so that the rectangle is roughly 10 inches by 6 inches. Cut dough into biscuits using a floured biscuit cutter (or even a glass, though its duller edge may result in slightly less tall biscuits).

Why are my homemade biscuits chewy? ›

Biscuit making is an art. It requires the right touch—and that means with your hands. A blender or processor will create too much friction, heating up the butter and flour quickly. You also have to be careful not to over-blend or you'll end up with chewy biscuits.

As the biscuits sit around, even in a tin, the sugar absorbs moisture from the air. Leave sugar in a bowl in the tropics, for example, and it will absorb so much water it will eventually turn into a liquid! As the sugar in the biscuit absorbs more moisture, it becomes softer and softer and less and less appetising.

Overworking (or Underworking) the Dough

The biscuits will be hard and tough if you stir the dough too much. They will have a floury, uneven texture if you don't mix enough. Our Test Kitchen cracked the code: Stir the dough 15 times for the perfect consistency and texture.

Keeping your dough squared off on all sides means when you roll it up into a log, you won't have smaller/thinner pieces at the end - the whole log will be one thickness, meaning every cinnamon roll will be the same when you slice them!

The over-kneaded dough can still be cooked. Just know that the result will be a bit different than you expected. Bread Loaves made with over-kneaded dough commonly end up with a hard crust and dry interior. Often upon cutting, slices will crumble.

When the dough is overmixed or kneaded too much, it develops gluten, leading to a tougher texture. To remedy this, mix the dough just until the ingredients are combined and avoid excessive kneading. Using too much flour can also result in tough biscuits, so be sure to measure accurately.

The solution is as simple as putting the biscuits in an airtight jar along with a small piece of bread (no more than half a slice).

Sugar attracts moisture and homemade biccies often contain a lot of it, so they are prone to losing their crunch. To stop biscuits getting soft, make sure your container is airtight and put a layer of dry rice in the bottom of it to absorb any rogue water particles in the air.