EASY Homemade Butter Swim Sourdough Biscuits!!!!

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Yes, you read that right! This week, we are going to be cooking up some homemade buttery biscuits made from sourdough discard! These butter swim sourdough biscuits are crispy and buttery on the outside… yet soft and delicious on the inside with that little “tang” of sourdough. The sourdough gives them a little more complexity and, well, a little more oomph.

Now, being from the South (southern U.S., that is), I LOVE me some biscuits and gravy!! Buttery and flaky and smothered in delicious, peppery white gravy. Mmm Mmmm!!! Whew, it is hard to get better than that! The only thing that rivals it in terms of favorite breakfasts for me would be the standard Costa Rican breakfast of gallo pinto, eggs, cheese, & ripe plantains. Can’t say which one I love more!

Now, I know I am making y’all hungry, so let’s get right to it! First, we need to answer a few basic questions….

What is butter swim?

Well, it really is just like it sounds. You see, these biscuits will be cooked while literally “swimming” in butter. I know, decadent, right? The butter really shines through on this recipe, and because the biscuits are cooked this way, it gives you that crispy, buttery outer crust.

So, if you have made biscuits before, you will likely know that most biscuits involve you cutting the butter into your dry ingredients and then adding in your wet ingredients. We won’t be doing that here. This will be much better, trust me!

Sourdough biscuits?

Yes, they are SOOOOO good! That tanginess of sourdough is delicious in these biscuits, and it also gives them a beautiful darker color compared to biscuits made without sourdough. We are going to be using sourdough discard here, but if you have active starter, you can use that as well.

What ingredients do you need to make butter swim sourdough biscuits?

• all purpose flour
• salt
• baking soda
• baking powder
• sugar
• unsalted butter
• sourdough discard
• milk

You will also need either an 8×8 or 9×9 inch glass pan.

Ingredients assembled? Alright, let’s talk about how we make them!

Butter swim sourdough biscuit dough

So, as I mentioned before, we will NOT be cutting butter into the dry ingredients.

Well, we also will NOT be kneading, rolling out, or cutting dough either! 😲 Awesome, right?

First off, we need to start our oven preheating to 450 degrees. Then we place a stick of butter in our 8×8 or 9×9 inch glass pan and put it in the oven while the oven is preheating.

Then, we work on our dough. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Next, add in your sourdough starter and sufficient milk (between 1/4 to 1/2 cup) to get you a wet, goopy dough. (I usually use around 6 tablespoons milk). The dough should want to stick together, but it should be very wet, especially for a biscuit dough. Like this:

For a closer look at the dough, check out my video tutorial also.

Now, with the dough ready, let’s get it in the pan.

Time to swim in the butter!

Remember your pan in the preheating oven? Once your oven is preheated, remove it from the oven. Be very careful though, as the butter can sometimes splatter everywhere as it cools a bit from the oven.

Now, let this butter cool just a couple of minutes, especially if it is splattering! Once the splattering stops, let’s add our dough. We are going to just carefully PLOP the dough on top of the butter and then spread it around as fairly evenly as we can.

See why it is called butter swim? You might say, Jill, isn’t that a lot of butter? You might think so, but the dough to fat ratio is actually pretty typical to your regular biscuits. 😲 However, because we have the biscuits swimming in the butter as they are cooking, as opposed to having cut the fat into the dry ingredients, we get more bang for our buck and really feel (and taste) that buttery-ness. (And isn’t that really what makes a delicious biscuit?!?!)

Next up, we need to pre-cut our biscuits. We are going to make 9, so cut them in a grid… 3 biscuits per side. Like this:

Now, don’t freak out here… the dough is goopy, and so it will want to stick to the knife a bit. Don’t worry, these don’t have to be perfectly shaped!

Oven time for our butter swim sourdough biscuits!

With the sourdough biscuits mixed and pre-cut, these puppies are ready for the oven! We want to bake these around 20 minutes, depending on your oven. When they are browned (and thanks to the addition of the sourdough, these will brown more than your regular biscuits), remove them from the oven. Not all of the butter will be absorbed into the biscuits, but it will be once they cool a couple of minutes. Give them 5 minutes or so while you cook your eggs, get your gravy going, or get the table set. It will be worth the wait!!

Give them one more set of cuts around the edges and along your scored lines, and they are ready to go!

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Ready to eat!

So, with our biscuits done, what shall we have with them? I love to top mine with gravy, and I am a big fan of this sausage-free version from Dachshund Mom. Instead of using butter as the fat in this recipe though, I prefer to use cold-pressed extra virgin coconut oil, as it gives it a richer flavor, in my opinion.

You could, of course, fill them with your favorite jam, jelly, or marmalade, or you could eat them with eggs and sausage or bacon. Or…. just eat them as is… 😋

Now that I’ve sold you on butter swim sourdough biscuits, can you believe they come in at only around 200 calories per biscuit? I know, neither can I! How, you say? Well, we have replaced a good portion of the milk component of the biscuits with sourdough starter!

I hope that you enjoy my recipe for butter swim sourdough biscuits!

Check out the video below, produced and edited by our up-and-coming chef in training (and son) Toby!

Check out the instructional video for my butter swim sourdough biscuits!

Mmmmm Mmmmm! Look at all that deliciousness!