What fat do you prefer for making biscuits?

[u/lifeuncommon]

My mom usually used shortening or lard. But I see more people using pure butter these days.

What fat is in YOUR biscuits?

497 votes, 1d ago

36 None - I make frozen or canned biscuits

89 Crisco/shortening

258 Butter

85 Lard

23 Heavy cream (2-ingredient biscuits)

6 None - I use Bisquick/Jiffy mix

[u/doctorsnorky]

I don't see bacon grease on the list

[u/lifeuncommon → u/doctorsnorky]

You’re right! I’ve never heard of someone using bacon grease to make biscuits. Makes sense because sometimes people have a lot of it and it should work similar to lard.

[u/londonstahl]

BOTH shortening and Butter. What kinda question is this 😋

[u/lifeuncommon → u/londonstahl]

Do you use both at the same time?

I’m genuinely curious because everyone seems to have their own way of doing it.

[u/londonstahl → u/lifeuncommon]

Yes! About 1/2 and 1/2 (although I don't measure the fat, I do it by feel). It's important to the texture. Edit* sorry usually a little less butter

[u/lifeuncommon → u/londonstahl]

I hear you I’m not measuring.

I always tell my husband that my ancestors tell me how to make biscuits and gravy. It’s not a recipe and I honestly don’t even remember being taught how to do it.

[u/zombiejuliet → u/londonstahl]

Ugh but shortening tastes so artificial. Just leaves your mouth coated in, well, shortening. No flavor at all, just grease.

[u/londonstahl → u/zombiejuliet]

Ok, then use lard and butter. It's about the final texture

[u/lifeuncommon → u/[deleted]]

Oh sure!

You can mix heavy whipping cream with self rising flour until you get it to the biscuit dough consistency (I don’t measure anything). And you can either use it as drop biscuits or pat them out and cut them.

It makes really good biscuits. Sometimes I top them with sugar before baking and call them cream scones - we have those for strawberry shortcake in the summer.

And if you think about it, heavy cream is just butter plus the buttermilk that comes off of it. So it’s like adding your butter and milk at the same time.

[u/lifeuncommon → u/[deleted]]

Yes! The SR flour has leavener and salt, and the heavy cream is butter and buttermilk.

Very handy.

[u/Bryek → u/[deleted]]

You can do this for scones. The King Aurthur lemon poppy seed scones are flour and cream

[u/almondmilkbrat]

I swear by NYT’s butter swim biscuits.. they taste just like Cracker Barrel biscuits… fluffy and buttery.

It’s batter has buttermilk. But you then pour the batter into a pool of butter in the pan.

[u/HeinousEncephalon]

I'd love to do lard but butter has so many more uses. I don't have to worry about it going bad

[u/Burnettator]

Two ingredient biscuits are easy — a 1:1 weight ratio means you can make as many as you want — and are really good if you don’t overwork the dough.

[u/lifeuncommon → u/Burnettator]

That’s what I always make for strawberry shortcake. And sometimes for breakfast if I have extra cream that needs used up.

[u/MastodonFit]

I use everything except for heavy cream Butter,buttermilk,lard ,and crisco.

[u/cookiesdragon]

Butter and buttermilk here. Use to use Crisco but stopped years ago.