My Grandma's Fluffy Cast Iron Biscuits

Discover my Grandmother's secrets to making Fluffy Cast Iron Biscuits with this easy recipe. Perfect for breakfast or as a side dish with dinner, these soft-as-a-cloud biscuits will absolutely melt in your mouth.

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I have been trying for years to recapture the incredibly tender texture of my grandmother's Fluffy Cast Iron Biscuits. She made them simply, with soft winter wheat flour, buttermilk, baking powder, butter, and salt, but the texture felt like there was some kind of magic in there.

You guys know how much I love all of my biscuit recipes. My flaky buttermilk biscuits, soft and fluffy cream biscuits, and sweet shortcake biscuits are all variations on some of the biscuits my grandmother used to make.

But it was when she would mix up this soft sticky dough, barely touch it at all, and lay tall biscuit rounds into her cast iron pan (smeared with bacon fat thank you very much) that the best biscuits came out of her kitchen.

She would cut them impossibly tall, but by placing them shoulder to shoulder in her cast iron pan they would rise straight up to the sky, leaning on each other for support. The bottoms and the edges would get so crispy but where they touched... tender, cloudy perfection. I don't know what else to say. Let's just make them.

Ingredients & Substitutions

Five simple ingredients stand between you and absolute cloudy-textured fluffy cast iron biscuits. Even though she used buttermilk, Grandma never added baking soda to her recipe. She called them baking powder biscuits, because it does all of the heavy lifting (no pun intended). Let's go over the very few ingredients and see where you can make changes if you need to:

• All-purpose flour - My Grandmother only used White Lily flour. It is an super-soft flour made from 100% red winter wheat, but it's very difficult to buy anywhere outside of the American South. In trying to re-create her recipes I've also tried to re-create the silky texture of her favorite flour by using cake flour, 00 pizza flour, and adding cornstarch to the flour, but it's really more about using the right ratios and the right technique. Use the best all-purpose flour you can find and afford. My Grandma will take care of the rest.
• Buttermilk - Buttermilk not only adds a tantalizing tang to the flavor of your biscuits, it also helps to tenderize them, which just means making them super soft. If you can't find buttermilk, or are afraid you won't use all of it, you can substitute with milk or even heavy cream.
• Butter - I only use unsalted butter. That's because there is no standard amount of salt that is added to differing brands of salted butter. if you only have salted butter, cut the added salt in the recipe in half. Bonus note: my grandma often used lard or shortening to make her biscuits. Use whatever solid fat you feel like using. I've used bacon fat, butter flavored shortening, and lard and I loved all of the biscuits that resulted. I even used solid coconut oil to make vegan biscuits that are pretty tasty.
• Baking powder - Grandma just used baking powder and called these her baking powder biscuits. The only thing she used baking soda for was brushing her teeth (to which I say 😖). Since baking powder is actually derived from baking soda, I get it. Only one container to worry about expiring. I tried adding baking soda to these but I didn't notice any discernible difference in the fluffiness.
• Kosher salt - I could get into a whole thing about how kosher salt versus table salt, but as long as you're using the same salt for everything, you will come to learn how salty things are going to taste. If you aren't using Diamond crystal kosher salt (my preferred brand) start with half the amount of salt stated in the recipe. You can always sprinkle flaky salt on top if you want.

See recipe card below for a full list of ingredients and measurements.

Why Use Cast Iron?

Cast iron is a great conductor of heat, and once a cast iron pan gets hot, it stays hot. This mean faster-baking biscuits and biscuits that can be served warm from the skillet long after they are done baking.

Many Southern biscuit recipes tell you that biscuits should be placed close to each other so that they touch while they bake. The reasoning is that the biscuits actually pull up on each other as they rise, creating a taller, fluffier biscuit. Biscuits in a skillet are in even tighter quarters, and they touch the sides of the skillet, so they have nowhere to go but up.

Skillet biscuits also get crisped by the hot bottom of the cast iron pan in a way that baking pans just cannot beat. While all those biscuits are snuggled up against each other, they don’t have room to get crusty around their edges, so they bake up more tender than their baking sheet counterparts.

Hot Tip: Make sure to butter the bottom and sides of the skillet before baking to get ultra-crispy sides and bottom.

Quick Recipe Video

Step-by-Step Instructions

The keyword to remember in making these soft and fluffy cast-iron biscuits is "gentle". We're going to handle our dough like it is a newborn baby. This tender touch is going to give you the best results.

Step 1: In a large bowl combine all-purpose flour, baking powder, and kosher salt. Toss in cold cubed butter and use your fingers and a "finger-snapping motion" to cut the butter into the flour. You can also grate your butter on the large holes of a grater or pulse the mixture in a food processor about 5 to 6 times.

Step 2: When properly cut in, the butter should be in small pieces, no larger than a small pea, and the rest of the flour should have a cornmeal-like texture.

Step 3: Pour in your buttermilk and mix until you have a wet cohesive dough.

Step 4: Turn the dough out onto a floured counter, dusting your hands and the top of the dough as needed, and gently bring it together into a square-ish shape about 1 inch thick.

Step 5: Gently fold over the dough twice, forming a smaller square.

Step 6: Gently (I told you that was the word of the day) pat the dough back out to a 1 to 1 ½ inch thickness.

Step 7: Cut rounds out with a cookie or biscuit cutter, without twisting the cutter. If you don't have either of those, cut into squares with a sharp knife. Gently press the scraps together and cut out as many biscuits as you can. I usually get 8 to 10 two inch biscuits.

If you have time, place your biscuits on a small tray in the freezer for 15 minutes while you preheat your oven to 450°F.

Step 8: Place the biscuits close together in a butter or bacon fat greased cast iron pan. Brush with more buttermilk, or an egg wash, and bake on a lower rack for 15 minutes. Move the pan to an upper rack for 3 minutes, or until the tops of your biscuits are golden brown.

Finish: Allow to sit on the counter for 10 minutes, then serve right from the skillet while they’re still warm, or place them in a bread basket and cover with a napkin, just like Grandma did. Then she would pull one open and slide a piece of country ham in the middle. I like to cover mine with country gravy and eat it with a side of skillet potatoes (I like carbs, okay? 🤷🏻‍♀️). The Boy likes lots of butter and honey 🍯 and flaky salt. Discover your favorite biscuit combo and tell me about it in the comments!

Serving Suggestion

My father recently passed away but I was lucky enough to be able to cook breakfast for him a few times in his last days. In my mind he will always be a biscuits and gravy, sunny side up eggs, crispy hash browns kind of guy. it was a darn good plate of food and my favorite as well. Try it for yourself!

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