Every time I bake a batch of biscuits, I find myself asking the same question: “Why don’t I bake more biscuits?!”
After all, what’s better than a flaky, crunchy exterior, cheddar-stuffed homemade biscuit? They work great as a side dish for a brunch, but they are also fantastic if you need something hearty during the week while you’re rushing to get out the door.
And heck… I’ve been known to sneak one after dinner with a little honey.
Again, more biscuits is never bad.
This recipe is a classic cheddar buttermilk biscuit recipe done monkey bread style. You can pull apart each biscuit, revealing layers of cheese and flaky dough. It’s everything you need.
- Want a simple, savory biscuit? Try these Pumpkin Biscuits!
Pull Apart Cheddar Buttermilk Biscuits
Equipment
Ingredients
- 2 cups grated sharp cheddar cheese
- 2 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
- 2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ cup unsalted butter, cubed + some for pan
- 1 ½ cups buttermilk
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Lightly butter muffin tins. Grate cheddar cheese.
- In a large bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and salt. Add cubed butter and cut into the flour until it is in pea-sized pieces. You can use a pastry cutter, a large fork, or just your fingers.
- Stir in buttermilk until it’s just combined. Try not to overwork the dough. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and roll it out into a large rectangle.
- Sprinkle the dough with half the cheddar cheese and fold it over so the cheese is in the middle. Roll out a second time and repeat. Roll out a third time until the dough is in a large rectangle (roughly 14×10). No need to be exact.
- Cut the dough into tiny 1-inch cubes. Stack the dough cubes in muffin tins, using 4-5 dough pieces per tin. They should completely fill the muffin tins.
- Bake biscuits at 425 degrees for 18-20 minutes until biscuits are nicely browned and cheese is bubbly.
- Let the biscuits cool for a few minutes before removing them and serving.
- Biscuits will keep fine once cool in an airtight container for a week in the fridge. Reheat in the microwave for 15-20 seconds.
Nutrition
Did you make this recipe?
Pull Apart Cheddar Buttermilk Biscuits
You could make these biscuits without the cheese. The biscuit portion of the recipe would be unchanged, but I’m always a sucker for sharp cheddar. Plus, since we will be folding the cheese into the dough, it actually creates more layers in the biscuit which equals a flakier biscuit.
Make the biscuit dough as you do: Stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and salt. Then add the cold, cubed butter and cut it into the flour. You can use a pastry cutter if you want to be fancy, but a large fork or even your hands will work equally well.
Once the butter is in pea-sized pieces, add in the buttermilk.
Stir everything together, but try not to overwork it. It’s okay if the dough is uneven at this point.
Just scoop it out onto a floured surface so you can work with it.
Knead the dough a few times and then roll it out into a large rectangle. Sprinkle it with half cheddar, fold it over itself, and roll it out a second time. Repeat with the cheese.
The dough will probably be pretty loose so you’ll want to flour it heavily so you can work with it.
Fold it over again and roll it out again. This method creates lots of layers of biscuit and cheese.
Then just cut the dough into 1-inch cubes!
Instead of stacking them together in a bundt pan though, pile up a few cubes into butter muffin tins. 4-5 cubes per muffin will do the trick.
(Note: You absolutely could just bake the biscuits without this step, but it’s fun!)
- Are homemade biscuits worth it? Read my homemade trials on biscuits!
Bake the biscuits at 425 degrees for 18-20 minutes until they are golden brown all over and the cheese is bubbly.
Let the biscuits cool for a few minutes before popping them out and serving them.
They are SO good though.
Here at Casa Macheesmo, these were a big hit with Mom, Dad, Kiddo, and Dog (courtesy of Kiddo).
If you have leftover biscuits, let them cool and store them in an airtight container in the fridge for a week. I like to reheat them for 15-20 seconds in the microwave.
Felicity
These look delicious!!!
Flora
What an amazing, delicious recipe. I don’t like biscuits to be too sweet so I omitted the sugar and added a pinch of cayenne. These were wonderful with homemade apple jelly and some smoked apple butter I had.
I found that the dough was a bit too wet and I had to use a lot of flour in rolling, maybe because my flour had been stored in a sealed bag in the freezer. Next time I would add an extra 2-4 tablespoons from the beginning to make for less handling when shaping the biscuits.
Thank you, from the bottom of my belly.
Nick
Thanks Flora! Sounds like you did the right thing with the dough. Mine wasn’t too wet to handle, but if you notice it’s really sticky, you can always add more flour by the tablespoon until it firms up a bit. Glad it worked for you though!!