This flakey mini biscuits recipe makes a perfect size for breakfast bites or bite-sized appetizers. Easy to make and so cute to serve and eat. Vegeterian.
No matter how you serve these mini biscuits - for breakfast, on a pastry board for brunch, or topped with savory fillings as an appetizer - they're flakey, delicious, and so easy to make.
Jump to:
- 6 Basic Ingredients
- Some Favorite Riffs
- Making Mini Biscuits
- What does cutting in butter mean?
- How long should you mix butter and flour?
- How thick to cut the biscuits
- Make Ahead of Time
- Fun Fail - 'The Snake Biscuit'
- How to Serve
- Some Common FAQ's
- Some Other Favorite Mini Pastry Recipes
- 📖 Recipe
- 💬 Comments & Reviews
6 Basic Ingredients
See the recipe card below for a full list of ingredients and quantities.
- All-purpose flour. There really is a difference in flours! We love King Arthur or Bob's Red Mill for the best texture in our biscuits.
- Butter. We recommend unsalted butter when baking making it easier to control the salt in the final product.
- Baking powder. Use an aluminum-free baking power like Bob's Red Mill or Rumford. If using a baking powder with added aluminum, you may notice a slightly bitter or metallic taste in your baked goods.
- Milk. Use whole, 2%, or 1% milk. We don't recommend non-fat milk.
- Other staples. Baking soda and salt.
Some Favorite Riffs
- Add mix-ins like cheese (parm, cheddar, gruyere), herbs (thyme, chives, parsley), or crispy bacon to the dough before forming biscuits.
- Swap coconut oil for the butter and coconut milk for the milk for a vegan biscuit.
- Use buttermilk in place of regular milk.
Use a kitchen scale! Measuring flour by volume (in cups) is notoriously unreliable, so if you must measure the flour in cups, use the scoop and level method for best results. Our recipe lists both the gram measurements and the volume measurements in the ingredients list.
Making Mini Biscuits
Our Easy Homemade Biscuits for a Crowd is a large batch of full sized biscuits and uses a food processor to cut the butter into the flour. This recipe, however, makes a smaller batch of mini, bite-sized biscuits, so there's no need for the Cuisinart. We cut the butter using our hands, but you can also use a pastry cutter if you prefer.
Cut Butter into Small Cubes
Cut the cube of butter into small cubes by first slicing it lengthwise. Rotate it 90° and slice lengthwise again - you'll now have long, thin sticks of butter. Finally, cut across the sticks to create small cubes. Place this in a dish in the fridge while gathering your dry ingredients.
Cut in Butter to Dry Ingredients
What does cutting in butter mean?
Cutting in fat, in this case butter, is a common term in baking. It means to mix butter (fat) into dry ingredients in a way that evenly distributes the small pieces of butter throughout the mixture. The intent is to coat the butter with flour while still keeping the butter in solid bits - not melting or fully blending it in. As the butter melts in the oven, it creates steam, which forms little air pockets, creating a flaky, tender texture in your baked goods.
You can 'cut in' butter using a pastry cutter, a fork, your hands, or a food processor. If using a food processor, be careful not to over-mix the fat and dry ingredients leaving a fully blended mixture which will lead to a drier, less flakey result.
Mix all of the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. Add the diced butter and use your fingers to rub it into the dry mixture until the butter forms small, flat flakes coated in flour. You can also use a pastry cutter, but we prefer the texture and control you get from using your hands.
How long should you mix butter and flour?
Rub the butter between your fingers until all of the small cubes are flat flakes of butter and coated with flour. Work quickly to keep butter from melting! If using a food processor, be careful not to over-mix the flour and butter, use short quick bursts.
Make sure the butter is cold! If the butter starts getting soft and melting, place the entire mixture into the fridge or freezer for 10 minutes to re-chill, remove and finish cutting in. Chill again if needed before adding the liquid.
Once the cold butter is fully cut into the dry ingredients (and it is cold!), add the milk in two stages. Add about half first and stir with a fork. Then pour the remaining milk around the edges and bottom of the bowl to help bring in any dry spots. Use a fork to mix just until everything is combined. It's okay if the biscuit dough is a little wet.
Forming Mini Biscuits
Turn the dough onto a lightly floured cutting board and gently pat it with your hand to bring it all together. Fold the dough over on itself and pat it to roughly ½" thick. Cut the biscuits into rounds with a 1 to 1 ½ inch cutter. Place the cut biscuits on a lined sheet pan. For a soft side, have the biscuits touching, for a crispier side, leave at least ½ inch between each biscuit.
Make the biscuits any diameter you want. Remember, the smaller you make them the more you'll want to consider how they rise - see the Fun Fail section below for more on this. If you make them larger you may need to increase the bake time.
No biscuit cutter? No problem.
Cut the biscuits into squares instead.
How thick to cut the biscuits
While sometimes making something a little thicker is better, this is not one of those times. Cutting these tiny biscuits much thicker than ½ inch will end up with them rising more than the small diameter can handle and they'll 'tip over' creating what I'm calling a 'snake biscuit'. See the Fun Fails section below for more on this.
Baking Biscuits
OPTIONAL: Brush the tops of each biscuit with melted butter for a golden brown top.
Bake until the tops are golden brown.
Make Ahead of Time
These biscuits can be made ahead of time and stored baked or unbaked. Storing cut, unbaked biscuits in the freezer makes it easy to bake the exact number of biscuits you need as you need them.
- Baked biscuits are best enjoyed within 24 hours but will keep for up to 2 days at room temperature or in the fridge. If you plan to keep them longer than 2 days we recommend freezing them where they'll keep for up to 1 month.
- Unbaked biscuits can be refrigerated overnight and baked in the morning or frozen for up to 2 months. Place frozen biscuits on a metal baking sheet and let them thaw while you pre-heated the oven to 425°F. Then bake for 11-15 minutes or until golden brown.
- Always store biscuits in airtight containers.
- Remember - to prevent breakage, never place a cold glass or ceramic dish into a hot oven!
Fun Fail - 'The Snake Biscuit'
We test our recipes over and over to make sure they're accurate and work for you. We rarely show you all the tests that don't quite work out. This fail was kind of fun, and classic, so we wanted to share it with you.
We love flakey biscuits, and the keys to that texture start with properly cutting in the butter and folding the biscuit dough over on itself before cutting into biscuits. However, with these small biscuits, too many folds - and cutting them thicker than ½ inch - caused them to rise and tip over while baking. They were still delicious, but reminded us of those little firework "snakes" that puff up and sprawl everywhere! So, for best results, fold the dough just once and keep it no thicker than ½ inch. Enjoy the photo of our biscuit snakes!
How to Serve
Perfect for breakfast or brunch, these miniature biscuits are delicious served with butter, honey, and your favorite jam (like this Slow Cooker Blueberry or Slow Cooker Strawberry Basil jam). For a fun twist, turn them into tiny breakfast sandwiches by filling them with eggs - just cut any of our egg casseroles (Bacon Cheddar, Ham and Gruyere, Jalapeño, or Vegetarian) into small rounds to fit. Add them to a pastry board with other options for a cute and crowd-pleasing presentation.
Add different fillings and serve as appetizers at your next party. Some filling ideas are listed below but get creative and fill with your favorite combination.
- Cheese: whipped goat cheese and roasted red pepper, brie with pear or apple slices, cream cheese with hot pepper jelly, or blue cheese and caramelized onions.
- Meat: ham and cheddar with honey mustard, pulled pork with coleslaw, bacon-lettuce-tomato with mayo, or chicken salad.
- Seafood: smoked salmon spread, smoked salmon with caper spread, or smoked salmon with creamy dill sauce.
- Vegetarian. caprese, cucumber with whipped feta or whipped goat cheese.
Some Common FAQ's
Make sure to keep the butter COLD! If the butter starts getting soft and melting, place the entire mixture into the fridge or freezer for 10 minutes before adding the liquid. If the butter is soft, melted, or over-mixed it won't create any steam, which forms air pockets and creates the flaky, tender texture.
No problem! Pat the dough into a rectangle and use a sharp knife to cut into small squares. You can also make drop biscuits by dropping small scoops of dough onto a lined baking sheet. NOTE: For drop biscuits, you may need to add an additional 1-2 Tablespoons of milk to loosen the dough, making it easier to scoop and drop.
Absolutely! Use cold, solid coconut oil in place of the butter - same rules apply, keep it cold. Substitute canned coconut milk in lieu of the milk.
Some Other Favorite Mini Pastry Recipes
📖 Recipe
Mini Biscuits
- Total Time: 35 minutes
- Yield: 36-48 biscuits
Description
These flakey mini biscuits are a perfect size for breakfast bites or bite-sized appetizers. Easy to make and so cute to serve and eat. Vegeterian.
Ingredients
- ½ cup (1 stick) COLD unsalted butter
- 320 grams (about 3 cups) all purpose flour
- 16 grams (1 Tablespoon + 1 teaspoon) baking powder
- 5 grams (1 teaspoon) baking soda
- 6 grams (1 teaspoon) kosher salt
- 1 cup milk
- 1 Tablespoon butter, melted (OPTIONAL)
Instructions
- Heat oven to 425° F.
- Prepare butter. Cut the butter into small cubes by first slicing it lengthwise. Rotate the cube 90° and slice lengthwise again and then cut across the 'thin sticks' to create small cubes. Place the butter in a dish and refrigerate while gathering dry ingredients.
- Gather dry ingredients. Stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a mixing bowl.
- Cut in butter. Add the cold, cubed butter to the bowl and rub the butter between your fingers until you have small flakes of butter coated in flour. Work quickly so the butter stays cold!
NOTES: You can also use a pastry cutter to cut butter into the flour mixture until it's coarse with small butter pieces throughout. If the butter is warming up, refrigerate or freeze the bowl for 10 minutes to chill it before adding the liquid. - Add liquid. Add half the milk into the flour-butter mix and stir with a fork. Add the remaining milk to the sides and bottom of the bowl and stir until just combined. The dough may be shaggy or it may not quite hold together yet - that’s fine!
- Form biscuits. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured cutting board. Gently pat the dough to bring it together, if necessary, work in any remaining dry bits of flour. Fold the dough over on itself and pat down to about ½ inch thick. Cut biscuits with a 1 to ½ inch round cutter.
No biscuit cutter? Cut into squares using a sharp knife.
Place cut biscuits on a sheet pan lined with a nonstick baking mat. - OPTIONAL: Brush the tops of each biscuit with melted butter.
- Chilling and baking mini biscuits. Place the sheet pan of cut biscuits in the freezer for about 10 minutes before baking. This step is completely optional but it helps the butter get cold again so when it bakes it releases steam making fluffy, layered biscuits.
- Bake at 425°F for 10-15 minutes until biscuits are lightly browned.
- Serve warm or cool.
Notes
Use a kitchen scale to measure dry ingredients! Measuring flour by volume (in cups) is notoriously unreliable, so if you must measure the flour in cups, use the scoop and level method for best results.
Keep the butter cold at all times. If it is soft or melted it won't create any steam, which forms air pockets and creates the flaky, tender texture we love.
Cut the dough into small squares instead of using a biscuit cutter.
Make these vegan by using solid coconut oil and coconut milk in place of butter and milk.
Serve these mini biscuits with butter, honey, or jam, or turn into bite-sized breakfast sandwiches using rounds from an egg casserole. Add them to a pastry board to make an eye-catching display. For appetizer bites fill them with savory ingredients like cheeses (goat or brie), meats (pulled pork or ham), smoked salmon, or veggies (caprese or cucumber with whipped feta).
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Category: Breakfast
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 biscuit
- Calories: 53
- Sugar: 0.3 g
- Sodium: 91.5 mg
- Fat: 2.7 g
- Carbohydrates: 6.3 g
- Protein: 1 g
- Cholesterol: 7 mg
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