Flaky Cheese Biscuits Recipe

What’s So Great About These Cheese Biscuits

These guys are Chock Full of sharp cheddar cheese.

They’re seasoned with Old Bay, so as far as I’m concerned they’re kinda like cheddar bay biscuits.

Most folks say there is no Old Bay in cheddar bay biscuits, but I say there should be, so I use it.

If you have Old Bay, do put it to use here!

While “real” Red Lobster copycats are drop biscuits, these guys are flaky and layered. This makes them a bit more sturdy (to offset all the cheese and hold them together) so you can use them as the base for little sandwiches.

And if you don’t want to make sandwiches, know that you can eat these without the biscuits disintegrating and crumbling.

Testing The Recipe

This recipe is the third permutation of these biscuits, and I finally deem it perfect.

I made the first batch as “regular” biscuits, just mixing the cheese right into the dough and calling it a day. I also used more than my usual 1 teaspoon to 1 cup of flour ratio for leavening because many southern biscuit recipes call for as much as 1 1/2 teaspoons per cup.

Not to put too fine a point on it, these excess-leavening biscuits tasted of despair. I could taste the extra leavening as a soapy-chemical aftertaste that was no good for anyone.

For the second batch, I layered in the cheese rather than adding it with the dry ingredients.

They rose impressively, but they still had too much leavening (though the aftertaste wasn’t as pronounced. They were also decidedly too Old-Bayish without any other balancing flavors.

For Round Three, I:

• cut back the leavening to my usual ratio
• cut back on the Old Bay
• introduced some granulated garlic and onion.

How to Make Layered Cheese Biscuits

These biscuits are not difficult to make, but the technique is pretty important so you get nice layers and an impressive rise.

Here are the ingredients you’ll need.

Ingredients and Substitutions

• flour: A low-protein all-purpose flour such as White Lily or Southern Biscuit is ideal. If you can’t find either brand, a “regular” all-purpose flour such as Gold Medal will work just fine. You can use King Arthur, but its higher protein content will make your biscuits just a little bit tougher
• baking powder: For leavening–most baking powder reacts (creating bubbles that allow the biscuits to rise) twice: once when it gets wet and another time when it gets hot. Hence the “double acting.”
• baking soda: Aids in leavening but is mostly in this recipe to balance the acidic buttermilk
• salt: For flavor. Please don’t leave it out, even if you use salted butter
• Old Bay Seasoning: A fantastic, all-purpose seasoning mix popular in and around Maryland. Celery salt, paprika, red and black pepper, plus who knows what else. The quintessential flavoring for Maryland crab cakes, the blend really makes these biscuits sing. Substitute celery salt or your favorite seasoning salt if you can’t find Old Bay.
• onion powder:
• garlic powder: You can use all onion powder or all garlic powder if you only have one. Just adds a hint of savory oniony goodness
• butter: I prefer unsalted, and you want it to be cold–straight from the fridge is just fine
• buttermilk: I use full-fat buttermilk, but the low-fat kind is fine too. If you don’t have buttermilk, substitute plain yogurt mixed with an equal amount of water or milk. I find this blend more closely approximates buttermilk than adding vinegar or lemon juice to milk does
• cheddar cheese: As far as I’m concerned, the sharper the better. I usually use New York sharp cheddar. Use your favorite

Procedure

First, I’ll go over the main steps to make these biscuits. Then I’ll break the “rolling and folding” down into component steps.

In a nutshell, here’s what you do:

1. Whisk together all the dry ingredients.
2. Rub in the butter with your fingertips.
3. Pour in the buttermilk and mix until barely combined.
4. Pat into a rectangle, then add the shredded cheese in a series of rolls and folds.
5. Cut off edges to make a neat rectangle, and cut into squares.
6. Brush with buttermilk and sprinkle with a little extra Old Bay.
7. Bake.

Let’s break down making the dough just a bit.

1. Whisk all the leavening, salt, and spices into the flour.
2. Drop in the butter and then rub it in with your fingers.
3. The third photo shows the texture you are aiming for: some little pieces of butter and some larger pieces of butter. Don’t rub it in so well that the mixture looks “mealy.” You want fairly big chunks that will roll into flakes to help the layers puff up.
4. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture, and pour in the cold buttermilk.

Pro Tip

Use a knife or the handle of a wooden spoon to stir the buttermilk into the flour mixture until you have a shaggy dough with some dry flour hanging out in the bottom of the bowl.

Once you’ve got your dough together, you need to get all that cheese in there, too.

Here’s how to make that happen.

Rolls and Folds

Flour your clean work surface and then:

1. Dump out the barely-mixed dough and sprinkle additional flour on top of it. Pat the dough into a rectangle.
2. Add half the grated cheese to one side of the dough.
3. Use your bench knife or a large spatula to help you flip the non-cheese side of the dough over on top of the cheese side.
4. Rotate the dough 90 degrees.

Repeat those steps once more with the other half of the cheese.

Once the cheese is incorporated, you’ll switch to using a rolling pin.

1. Roll your dough into a rectangle that’s about 1/2″ thick.
2. Using your bench knife to help you, fold it in half, scooping up any bits of cheese and/or dough that fall off.
3. Turn the dough 90 degrees.
4. Roll into a rectangle about 1/2″ thick.

You’ll repeat these four steps three more times for a total of six “turns:” two to incorporate the cheese and four more to build in extra layers.

Cutting the Biscuits

Once you have completed all your folds, Use your bench knife or a pizza cutter to trim off the edges of your dough on all four sides. Make sure you cut straight down.

Place your cut biscuits on a Silpat- or parchment-lined pan, brush the tops with buttermilk, and sprinkle lightly with some Old Bay or black pepper.

Equipment You May Need

The great thing about making cheese biscuits is that you don’t need a bunch of fancy equipment.

Grab a big bowl, your bench knife, a rolling pin, and a sheet pan and you’re good to go.

And of course, when it comes to accuracy, weighing is your best bet, so do get a kitchen scale.

You may also want to check out my list of tools for serious bakers.

Variations

These cheese biscuits are endlessly adaptable.

Feel free to switch up your cheese choice with a different grating cheese such as Gruyere or provolone.

Vary the flavor of your biscuits by varying the spicing. Consider mustard powder, cayenne pepper, smoked paprika and more.

More Pro Tips

Smaller biscuits will rise higher than larger biscuits. For optimum rise, cut them into 1 1/2″ minis.

Freeze the cut biscuits for an hour or so before baking. This will ensure the butter and cheese are nice and firm. When they melt in the hot oven, the steam will lift help the layers apart.

Flaky Biscuits Q & A

Serving Suggestions

Cheddar biscuits are great when served with any kind of soup or chili.

Or just serve them as a bread option for dinner, regardless of what you’re serving.

Cut in about 3″ squares, they make great vehicles for breakfast sandwiches. Add a schmear of bacon jam or onion jam, and you’ll be happy you did!

If you’d like a non-cheese biscuit recipe, consider my all-butter angel biscuits. Those are tasty too!

A Note About Measurements

NOTE: Most of my recipes are written by weight and not volume, even the liquids.

Even though I try to provide you with volume measurements as well, I encourage you to buy a kitchen scale for ease of measuring, accuracy, and consistency.

This is the scale I use, love, and recommend. If you’re unsure, please read my post about how to use a food scale.

Questions

If you have questions about this post or recipe, don’t hesitate to get in touch. You can leave a comment on the post and I will get back to you within about 24 hours.

If your question is more urgent, please shoot me an email, and I will respond within 4 hours, unless I’m asleep.

Thank you for spending some time with me today. Enjoy the biscuits, and have a lovely day.