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Easy Butter Swim Biscuits Recipe

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This Butter Swim Biscuit recipe is one of the easiest biscuits that you can make. Buttermilk biscuits are baked in a pool of melted butter. The result is a tender crumb with crispy edges that melts in your mouth.

White plate with stack of butter swim biscuits.

Make these scrumptious buttermilk biscuits and enjoy with breakfast, lunch, or dinner! Perfect to serve as part of a brunch menu or on its own for any occasion! They are the quintessential Southern breakfast comfort food.

These melt-in-your-mouth homemade biscuits are perfect served alongside scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage links, fried chicken, and fresh fruit salad. They are also pretty awesome with strawberry jam or simply by themself.

These amazing biscuits are easier to make than typical buttermilk biscuits because you don’t have to grate or chop cold butter and work it into the biscuit dough. And you don’t need a rolling pin or biscuit cutter! Let’s take a look at how easy it is to make these biscuits.

Butter Swim Biscuits Ingredients

Before you get started, make sure you have all of your ingredients in place (mise en place). For basic Butter Swim Biscuits, you need the following simple ingredients:

Instructions

The very first thing to do is to create the “pool” of butter. That’s what the biscuit dough needs in order to “swim.” Get it?

To make the buttery pool, place a stick of butter in an 8×8-inch square baking dish. Place it in your oven and let it melt while the oven heats up to 450 degrees.

Be sure to keep an eye on the butter. You don’t want it to burn. If it browns just a little bit, that will be fine. You can also remove it from the warm oven when it is mostly melted. The warm dish will continue to melt the butter even once it has been removed from the toasty environment.

Once you have taken care of the pool of butter, it’s time to move on to the biscuit making. This will only take a couple of minutes.

Glass bowl with flour and wooden spoon by a measuring cup with buttermilk.

Next, whisk together all-purpose flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Whisking it together is a good way of getting the dry ingredients well blended.

Stirring buttermilk into flour with a wooden spoon.

Pour buttermilk into the flour mixture and stir with a wooden spoon. The dough will become “shaggy” once the buttermilk starts to react with the baking powder.

It’s baking chemistry at its finest – baking powder is a base and buttermilk is an acid and when the two get together, they create carbon dioxide bubbles. That is what helps to make the biscuits rise.

Cool, huh?

Mixed butter swim biscuit dough in a glass bowl with a wooden spoon.

Now place 9 spoonfuls of biscuit batter into the pan of melted butter, aka butter bath. I place 3 rows of 3. This makes it easier for the butter to get in between the biscuits. Alternatively, you can just place all of the batter into the butter and create one ginormous biscuit. You can later cut that biscuit with a sharp knife or bench scraper into however many biscuits you would like.

Unbaked biscuit dough in a white ceramic baking dish.

Baking Time

Cover the pan with aluminum foil and bake for 15 minutes in the preheated oven. Carefully remove the foil and bake for another 10 minutes or until the biscuits have reached the desired doneness. What do I mean by that?

White baking pan filled with baked butter swim biscuits.

Some people like their biscuits to be nice and golden brown. Some people define golden brown as being dark, while others like it on the lighter side. So, it all depends on how you define golden. The main test that you need to pass is the wooden pick test.

Wooden Pick Test

Insert a toothpick or wooden pick or some other food-safe device like a skewer into the center of the baked biscuits. When you pull the pick out, it should come out clean. If there is biscuit dough still on the pick, bake for an additional 5 minutes and then re-test.

Plate of butter swim biscuits and eggs and sausage.

How To Store Butter Swim Biscuits

Store leftover biscuits in an airtight container or covered with plastic wrap at room temperature for up to 2-3 days.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I use self-rising flour in this recipe?

Yes. If you have self-rising flour, you can use it to replace the all-purpose flour, baking powder, and salt.

What if I don’t have buttermilk?

You can make “sour milk” by placing 2 tablespoons of white vinegar in a 2-cup measuring cup and adding whole milk to the 2-cup mark. Let it sit for 10 minutes. This will make a buttermilk substitute.

How many carbs are in butter swim biscuits?

If the calculations are correct in the app that I use, there are approximately 31 grams of carbs in each biscuit. (This batch makes 9 delicious biscuits.)


Love biscuits? Be sure to check out these other delicious biscuit recipes at Southern Kissed:

White plate with stack of butter swim biscuits.

Butter Swim Biscuits

Lynda – Southern Kissed
Baked over a pool of butter, these biscuits are tender and melt in your mouth.
4.77 from 13 votes
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 25 minutes
Total Time 35 minutes
Course Breads
Cuisine American
Servings 9 biscuits
Calories 256 kcal

Equipment

  • 8-inch baking dish
  • Mixing bowl

Ingredients
  

  • 1 stick butter
  • 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 4 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 ½ teaspoons salt
  • 2 cups buttermilk

Instructions
 

  • Preheat oven to 450° Fahrenheit. Place butter in an 8×8-inch baking dish and place in the oven to melt.  Keep a watch on the butter and do not let it burn.  Once the butter has melted, remove it from the oven and let the oven finish heating.
  • Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large mixing bowl.
  • Pour buttermilk into flour mixture and mix with a spoon to form a shaggy dough.
  • Scoop 9 spoonfuls of biscuit batter into the pan of melted butter.
  • Cover baking dish with aluminum foil and bake for 15minutes.
  • Remove foil from baking dish and bake biscuits for an additional 10 minutes or until baked through and golden brown.
  • Remove from oven and allow biscuits to cool for 5 minutes before serving.

Nutrition

Serving: 1biscuitCalories: 256kcalCarbohydrates: 31gProtein: 5gFat: 12gSaturated Fat: 8gPolyunsaturated Fat: 1gMonounsaturated Fat: 3gTrans Fat: 1gCholesterol: 33mgSodium: 536mgPotassium: 292mgFiber: 1gSugar: 4gVitamin A: 402IUCalcium: 147mgIron: 2mg
Tried this recipe?Mention @SouthernKissed or tag #SouthernKissed!
Butter Swim Biscuits on a white plate.

Now you know how to make a scrumptious batch of buttery biscuits that will melt in your mouth with this easy-to-follow, scratch recipe.

Don’t Forget To Come Back And Let Me Know How Your Butter Swim Biscuits Turned Out!

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13 Comments

  1. Which is it? You list baking powder in the ingredients and then try to give us a chemistry lesson in your explanation writing baking SODA.

  2. 4 stars
    It isn’t dough, but batter. I poured it into the melted butter. No way it could be formed. It tasted very good and I will keep the recipe, but texture is like cake not biscuits. Love the crunchy bottom!

  3. Trust the process , y’all. Yes,it doesn’t look like a traditional biscuit dough, but it cooks up beautifully.
    I mixed all my ingredients in my food processor and melted the butter in a cast iron on the stove. Dumped in the dough and spread it around. It’s a wonderful recipe that I have made several times and my mother in law requests them when ever she stays with us .

  4. I didn’t get a dough, more like a batter and it was impossible to scoop or spread onto the melted butter. Wasted 2 1/2 cups of flour and 2 cups of buttermilk.

    1. I agree! I did the exact measurements, but it was a batter, not a dough. I just put it in the oven. We’ll see if it turns into biscuits.

      What I don’t understand is how anyone else got a different result and ended up with a dough? 2 1/2 cups of flour and 2 cups of liquid does not make a dough.

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