Giant & Fluffy Southern Cathead Biscuits
These old-fashioned cathead biscuits are as much of a delicacy to us in the South as beignets. They feature a golden brown, crispy exterior that gives way to an incredibly soft, flaky, and buttery interior. Named for their massive size (traditionally said to be as big as a cat’s head), they are far from your dainty afternoon tea biscuits!
A Quick Look At The Recipe
- Recipe Name: Giant & Fluffy Southern Cathead Biscuits
- Ready In: 30 minutes
- Serves: 8 Large Biscuits
- Main Ingredients: all-purpose flour, baking powder, granulated sugar, salt, baking soda, cold unsalted butter, cold buttermilk, melted butter
- Why You'll Love It: These giant, old-fashioned Southern cathead biscuits are crispy on the outside, incredibly fluffy on the inside, and bake up to the size of a cat's head! Made with simple ingredients like cold buttermilk and plenty of butter, they require zero rolling or cutting; just shape them by hand and drop them into a hot cast-iron skillet!
Fluffy Biscuits With No Cutter Required!
If you’ve never experienced a true Southern biscuit, you are in for a treat! Growing up, making homemade biscuits was like a weekend ritual, and while I love me a delicate rolled biscuit, there is something so satisfying about fluffy cathead biscuits. Because you shape them by hand into large pieces instead of using a traditional biscuit cutter, they require less fussing and stay incredibly tender.
The best part about these giant buttermilk biscuits is just how many ways there are to eat them. You can split one open while it’s still steaming hot and smear it with homemade honey butter, pile it high with salty country ham, or do what my family does on Sunday mornings and smother the whole plate in a thick sawmill gravy. If you love quick breads that bring everyone running to the kitchen, this easy bread recipe is about to become your new favorite.
Ingredients For Cathead Biscuits
- All-purpose flour
- Baking powder
- Granulated sugar
- Salt
- Baking soda
- Unsalted butter, cubed
- Buttermilk
- Melted butter
Expert Tips from My Kitchen
- Keep Everything Freezing Cold: The first rule of biscuit making is that your ingredients must be cold. When cold butter hits a hot 450°F oven, the moisture inside the butter bursts into steam, creating those perfect flaky pockets. Keep your butter and buttermilk in the fridge until the exact second you need them!
- Ditch the Food Processor: While it’s tempting to use a machine to speed things up, a pastry cutter or your own fingertips give you the best texture. You want pieces of butter the size of peas left in your flour mixture. If you overwork the dough, the gluten develops, and you’ll end up with tough, dense hockey pucks instead of delicious biscuits.
- Use a Cast-Iron Skillet: While a standard baking sheet or cookie sheet works fine, baking these in a seasoned cast-iron skillet or a round cake pan is the secret to getting crispy bottoms and soft, pull-apart sides.
- Let Them Snuggle: When placing your dough portions into the pan, make sure the sides of the biscuits are nestled right up against each other. Forcing them to touch makes them bake upward instead of spreading outward, resulting in much taller, fluffier cathead biscuits! I like to top mine with homemade buttermilk syrup.
How to Make Cathead Biscuits
1. Mix the Dry Ingredients
Preheat your oven to 450°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, or lightly grease a 10-inch cast-iron skillet with a little bacon grease or butter. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, and baking soda until fully combined.
2. Cut in the Butter
Drop your cubed, cold butter into the flour mixture. Using a pastry blender or your fingertips, quickly work the butter into the flour until it looks like coarse crumbs with some pea-sized pieces of butter still visible.
3. Add the Buttermilk
Pour the cold buttermilk into the bowl. Stir gently with a wooden spoon or butter knife just until a sticky, shaggy dough forms. Stop mixing the second the flour disappears!
4. Shape and Bake
Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and gently pat it into a thick rectangle about 1 inch thick. Divide the dough into 8 equal pieces and lightly shape each into a rough ball. Place them in your prepared skillet with the sides touching. Bake for 13–15 minutes until the tops are a deep golden brown. Remove and immediately brush with the melted butter.
Cathead Biscuits FAQs
The name comes from a traditional Southern standard of measurement: they are supposed to be baked as big as a cat’s head! Because you shape the dough by hand into large portions instead of cutting them into neat little circles, you get a massive, hearty biscuit that takes up a good chunk of your plate.
The main difference is the size and how you handle the dough. Regular Southern biscuits are usually rolled out flat with a rolling pin and cut out with a precise round biscuit cutter. Cathead biscuits completely skip the rolling pin and the cutter.
The best trick is to force the biscuits to snuggle up in the pan! When you place the dough portions into your cast-iron skillet or cake pan, make sure their sides are nestled right up against each other. When they touch, it forces the dough to bake upward rather than spreading outward, giving you much taller biscuits with incredibly soft, pull-apart sides.
The biggest one I see is overworking the dough. If you stir the buttermilk in too aggressively or handle the dough too much while shaping it, you’ll develop the gluten and end up with a tough, dense biscuit. Another common mistake is letting your ingredients warm up. Your butter and buttermilk need to be ice-cold right up until they hit the oven; that cold butter creates the steam pockets needed for a perfect, tender rise!
Similar Recipes
If you want to build a full Southern breakfast spread, you have got to make my ham, cheese, and egg casserole, or these grab-and-go breakfast burritos if you like to take your morning meal on the go.
Once you’ve finished baking your batch of this cathead biscuit recipe, please leave a star rating and a review in the comments below to let me know what you think!
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 cup cold unsalted butter cubed
- 1 cup cold buttermilk
- 2 tablespoons melted butter for brushing
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 450°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or lightly grease a cast-iron skillet.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, and baking soda.
- Cut the cold butter into the flour mixture using a pastry cutter or your fingertips until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
- Pour in the cold buttermilk and stir just until a shaggy dough forms. Do not overmix.
- Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and gently pat it into a thick rectangle about 1 inch thick.
- Divide the dough into 8 equal portions and shape each into a rough ball.
- Place the biscuits on the prepared baking sheet with the sides touching for softer edges or spaced apart for crispier sides.
- Bake for 13–15 minutes, or until golden brown on top.
- Remove from the oven and immediately brush with melted butter.
- Serve warm with butter, honey, jam, sausage gravy, or your favorite toppings.