Simple Biscuit Recipes – Sleeping Baby Biscuits and Screaming Baby Biscuits

If you’re new to baking, biscuits are a great place to start.  They’re really hard to mess up.  We have two simple biscuit recipes and alternate between them depending on what life is throwing at us at the time.

 

The first biscuit recipe below is more involved than the second and requires two hands, so we dubbed it Sleeping Baby Biscuits.  Wait until the baby’s asleep before trying this biscuit recipe.  The second is easy to whip up with one hand in a matter of minutes.  You can mix these up while holding a screaming baby in one hand, so this simple biscuit recipe is aptly named Screaming Baby Biscuits.

When the baby is asleep, give this biscuit recipe a try:

Simple Biscuit Recipes – Sleeping Baby Biscuits

Author: Christy
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 6
Sleeping Baby Biscuits are biscuit perfection! Serve with butter and jam, or use for breakfast sandwiches, biscuits and gravy, or Egg in a Basket!
Ingredients
  • 2 cups flour (of your choice)
  • 3-4 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar (if you don’t have it, skip it! It adds a little fluff to the biscuits, but so does the baking powder, so don’t worry about it.)
  • 1 tablespoon honey
  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 2/3 cup water or milk
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 450.
  2. Mix dry ingredients in one bowl.
  3. Cut in butter. (Cold butter cut into the flour using a pastry cutter or a back and forth motion with two table knives will lend a flaky texture to these biscuits. Seeing as we live in the real world, I often soften the butter and stir it in with a GASP wooden spoon.)
  4. Mix milk/water and honey in another bowl. (Okay, fine, I just dump them both in the flour/butter mixture…and I don’t actually measure my honey.) Add to dry ingredients.
  5. Mix until it holds together. Then dump it onto a lightly floured surface and knead about a dozen times.
  6. Flatten the dough gently and cut with a biscuit cutter or the top of a cup or glass into about 12 biscuits.
  7. If you like crusty edges, place the biscuits on a baking sheet about two inches apart. If you like softer edges from a “pull-apart” biscuit, put them close together in a pan. You may brush the tops with melted butter or milk, but again, real world!
  8. I like to let them rest for about twenty minutes before baking, but, seriously, my babies don’t sleep that long, so I usually just throw them in the oven. Bake at 450 for 10 minutes or until they are done to your liking.

If the baby is not cooperating, opt for this very simple biscuit recipe:

Simple Biscuit Recipes – Screaming Baby Biscuits

Author: Christy
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 6
This is an old family recipe from my mother that everyone makes differently, so play with it until you find what you like…but not if the baby’s screaming.
Ingredients
  • 2 cups flour (of your choice)
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 4 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/3 cup oil (sometimes I use butter)
  • 2/3 cup milk or water
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 425.
  2. Mix dry ingredients in a bowl.
  3. Mix wet ingredients in another bowl. (I use a glass measuring cup to save on dishes.)
  4. Combine with your hands, a spoon, your child’s hands, whatever.
  5. Grab by handfuls and drop on a baking sheet. It makes around 12, depending on the size you like.
  6. Bake for 12-15 minutes.
  7. For a more pastry-like texture, use a 50/50 ratio of oil/butter to milk/water. Screaming Baby Biscuits are great left out over night uncovered for morning grazing. Serve with honey and butter.

The original version of the Sleeping Baby Biscuits recipe comes from a really old, tattered, yellowed Better Homes and Gardens cookbook my husband and I bought for a quarter at a garage sale nearly two decades ago.  The Screaming Baby Biscuits recipe is from my mom, who is not old, tattered, or yellowed, but who makes great biscuits.

Enjoy these simple biscuit recipes!

 

33 thoughts on “Simple Biscuit Recipes – Sleeping Baby Biscuits and Screaming Baby Biscuits”

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  3. I must say, these are absolutely amazing. The recipe is so versatile! As a poor college student, baking breads and biscuits gives me something to eat when my dollar can’t stretch too far, and I have turned to this recipe quiet a few times. I have improvised and even ruined the recipe and they still turn out lovely. For example, I tried to half the recipe and accidentally added way too much water, so I poured the batter into a muffin pan and baked, and they still turned out delicious! Thanks for the recipe, this one will be a keeper.

    1. I’m glad you like them. They’re the biscuits I grew up on. I like them fresh from the oven with butter and honey, or left out overnight uncovered so they’re dry and hard. Yum! Now I’m homesick! 😉

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  7. I literally made the screaming baby biscuits while holding a screaming baby. Let me just say thank you from the bottom of my sleep deprived biscuit lovin heart 🙂 They are so easy and delicious.

    1. My family loves them, too. 🙂 I’m super happy they turned out well for you and that your family enjoyed them. Thanks for dropping by and leaving me a comment.

  9. The biscuts tasted great, but did not rise, but I did not follow directions to a tee, tried to be quick bc of hungry kids lol. Plus I did not knead 12 times and I did not cut in circles but easy squares w/ a knife. Maybe I made it to flat.

    1. Hi Judy,

      Were you making Screaming Baby or Sleeping Baby Biscuits? The Screaming Baby Biscuits will not rise at all. The Sleepers, however, should puff up a bit from the baking powder. They won’t, obviously, even close to rising as much as yeast rolls would, but they shouldn’t be flat like hockey pucks either. I’ve done the easy squares and skipped the kneading plenty of times myself, so that isn’t the issue. Here are my thoughts.

      1–It is possible that the baking powder is old.
      2–The dough is sometimes too dry if I don’t measure properly. In that case, my biscuits don’t puff up.
      3–If I overwork any non-yeast flour product, my final product is too dense, but this doesn’t sound like it was your issue, considering the hungry kids. 😉
      4–If I “squish” them too flat, they give up the ghost and don’t puff. I often do this when I’m trying to get more biscuits out of it, but don’t want to actually double the recipe.
      5–Finally, if I give them a few minutes before baking them (I know all about hungry kids, so I can’t blame you in the least if you don’t have time for this), the baking soda has more time to activate.

      I hope one of these solutions works for you. Sometimes a recipe I’ve used hundreds of times flops once or twice, and I can’t figure out why. Thanks for letting me know! Good luck!

    1. Hi Steven and happy new year! Thanks for letting my know how your biscuits turned out. I’m thrilled that you liked them. And honey and butter–yup, that’s the way to go. Thanks.

  11. I literally laughed out loud when you said “they’re really hard to mess up” because you’re talkin’ to somebody that can flat ruin a biscuit! But these turned out great!! My husband was so impressed (I am not a bad cook, just a terrible biscuit maker 🙂 ). Buttered for dinner and leftovers for breakfast with farm fresh honey – oh yeah, my go-to recipe from now on! We’ll be doubling the batch and storing more in the freezer this week. Thanks so much for sharing!!

    1. Ha ha! Thanks for proving me right about the “hard to mess up” part. 😉 I’m glad they turned out, but now you have me drooling over the farm fresh honey.

  13. Thank you so much for the screaming baby biscuit recipe!! I can’t tell you how many times I have made these while my baby literally was screaming! They are perfect and easy to do when your brain is being fried from cries!

    1. Rachel, I’m very happy the screaming baby biscuits work for you! I think that’s why my mom developed this recipe. With three screaming babies three and under, her brain was fried. 😉

  14. I tried the screaming baby biscuit recipe. I was looking for a recipe to make biscuits with oil and water, which I did. These are the best biscuits I have had in a long time and will definately pass this recipe to my daughter n laws. I know my grandchildren will love them. Thank you for posting this recipe.

  16. I had a Mazola cookbook that had a recipe for stir and roll biscuits. I moved and haven’t been able to find it.

    Do you have this recipe? Everyone thought I was so smart to make those delicious biscuits. Little did they know how simple they were to make.

    I have a new friend who is addicted to biscuits and gets up in the middle of the night to try to make them.

    I would really appreciate you sending me the address (if you have it) so I can share it with her. Also, so I can refresh my memory. Thanks

    Virginia Gioiello

  17. My son and I just tried the sleeping baby biscuits and we loved them. He had fun helping also. We ate them with just butter at first, then with grape jam and orange marmalade. We loved that so then I ate them with a bowl of my home made chicken soup and it was great with that too. I’ll be saving this recipe thanks!

  19. hello, I have just made the sleeping cookies, they’re nice but very salty. Is it because I used baking soda instead of baking powder ? I didn’t have baking powder…

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