Butter Swim Biscuits - Easy & Buttery

Recipe: Butter Swim Biscuits Recipe »

These butter swim biscuits are the easiest, fluffiest biscuits you will ever make. No kneading, rolling or cutting...just mix and bake in melted butter for golden, buttery biscuit perfection! These will change the way you make Southern biscuits.

About These Butter Swim Biscuits

These Butter Swim Biscuits are an incredibly delicious simple Southern American biscuit recipe. No grating butter, no kneading, no rolling, no individual cutting I promise! These Butter Swim Biscuits are super simple and you may never make Southern biscuits the traditional way again!

These Butter Swim Biscuits are so named because they "swim" in melted butter but within a few minutes of pulling them out of the oven, the butter absorbs back into the dough to create perfectly light and flakey biscuits! They were made popular by Erika Council in her book "Still We Rise: A Love Letter to the Southern Biscuit". Laura got me onto them and I've been baking them this way ever since.

Let's bake! I promise you will love these.

Video How To Make Butter Swim Biscuits

Video: How to Make Butter Swim Biscuits (made with fresh butter)

Ingredients For Butter Swim Biscuits

Butter - salted butter, please :)

Flour - cake flour makes for more tender biscuits so use cake flour if you have it. To make 1 cup of cake flour, replace 2 tablespoons of plain all purpose flour with cornflour/fine cornstarch and whisk well.

Sugar - use caster or superfine sugar as it melts into the dough better.

Baking powder - to give the biscuits a beautiful rise.

Salt - use fine or kosher salt for the dough and flakey salt to finish.

Buttermilk - I used the buttermilk from making homemade butter but you can easily make buttermilk at home. Add 2 teaspoons of lemon or lime juice or vinegar to every cup of full cream milk. Use full cream milk and not skim.

Tips For Making Butter Swim Biscuits

1 - You can bake these in a 20X20cm/8x8inch metal square tin. If you want to buy a square glass baking dish, Big W sells a Masterclass dish for $6.

2 - Avoid overmixing the biscuit dough as that can make for tough biscuits. Stop mixing as soon as there are no dry flour patches.

3 - Rest the baked biscuits for at least 15 minutes before cutting up and serving. The butter will absorb back into the dough in this time and the biscuit will set properly. If you cut it before time, the texture of the biscuit can become gummy.

4 - You can make these biscuits sweet too! Top with icing and chopped fruit.

Other Southern American recipes to try next are: Moist Cornbread, Tomato Pie, Fried Green Tomatoes with Milk Gravy or Smothered Yardbird.

Butter Swim Biscuits Recipe

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Recipe Overview

Preparation time: 8 minutes

Cooking time: 35 minutes

Serves: 9

Ingredients Needed

• 113g/1 stick butter
• 2 cups/300g/ cake flour
• 50g/1.7oz caster or superfine sugar
• 3 teaspoons/15g/0.5oz baking powder
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 cups/ buttermilk
• 28g/1oz melted butter, cooled slightly
• Flakey salt
• 2 tablespoons butter to melt on top

Step-By-Step Instructions

Step 1 PREPARE - Preheat oven to 230C /446F conventional or 210C/410F fan forced. Place stick of butter in a square 20x20cm/8x8inch baking dish and place in the oven while it is coming to temperature for 5-7 minutes or until it has melted.

Step 2 BATTER - Meanwhile whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together in a large bowl. Add the buttermilk and melted butter in alternating lots and stir until just combined. The batter will be quite thick and slightly lumpy.

Step 3 CUT - Once the butter has melted, remove dish from the oven and carefully pour the batter over the melted butter. Do not stir. Cut the batter into 9 squares with a butter knife in the actual baking dish.

Step 4 BAKE - Bake for 25-30 minutes and turn around halfway. Check after 25 minutes and if the top is browning too much, add foil and continue baking for another 5 minutes.

Step 5 BRUSH - Brush top with extra butter and sprinkle with salt. Rest for 15 minutes before cutting.

Personal Note

I've got some exciting news for you Dear Reader! I got a new Substack. I started a substack because I wanted to share some recipes that were a bit extra and I also wanted to have another outlet because I don't know how AI will impact me long term. Honestly, it's a pretty strange time for recipe developers and bloggers.

Don't worry, the blog is staying exactly as it is (and always free!). But I've started a Substack where I will be sharing my more "extra" recipes aka my most over-the-top recipes in a paid Substack where I can share them properly.

For a while now, I haven't quite known where to put them. If you're a bit extra like me then I think you'll like these. They're recipes like Dubai Chocolate Mousse, a Grape Crisp Cake, Tiramisu Cinnamon Rolls or Carrot Tarte Tatin.

And if you're happy right where you are, nothing changes at all. I'll still be here, sharing plenty of free recipes as I always have for the last 19 years!

Love,

Lorraine

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