Great American Taste Test – KFC biscuits
Have you ever seen those copy-cat recipes where you can make your favorite restaurant treats at home? The Red Lobster cheddar biscuits is a common copy-cat recipe out there. I was contacted to participate in the Great American Taste Test by testing out a recipe from America’s Most Wanted Recipes by Ron Douglas (you can also check out his website). They offered to send me a free copy of the cookbook if I agreed to blog about a recipe comparison. I looked through the table of contents and decided to make the KFC Biscuits. I love KFC biscuits and I’ve never made biscuits at home.
While I was baking the biscuits, I sent Hubby off to KFC to grab a pair of their biscuits so we could compare the copy-cat recipe side-by-side with the real thing. We made these biscuits into breakfast sandwiches. Even though this isn’t a typical way to eat a KFC biscuit, we love to eat a big late breakfast on the weekends.
Size – My biscuits were a bit on the small side. I had to use a medium sized biscuit cutter to get the 9 biscuits the recipe says it makes. I would much rather have fewer thicker and bigger biscuits than more small ones. As you can also see from the picture, my biscuits didn’t rise as much as the KFC ones did.
Taste – The biscuits I made are definitely flaky and soft. They were great and we both really enjoyed them. The taste is spot on when compared to the KFC biscuits. The texture was a bit different mostly because the KFC biscuit was more hard on the outside, but had the same flaky inside. I think I liked the texture of the biscuits I made better than the KFC biscuit. I’ll definitely use this recipe again if I need to make biscuits.
KFC Buttermilk Biscuits – from America’s Most Wanted Recipes – makes 9
1 1/2 c flour
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/3 c vegetable shortening
2/3 c buttermilk
Preheat oven to 425.
Sift together dry ingredients into a large bowl. Cut in the shortening.
Make a nest in the flour mixture and add the buttermilk. Knead the mixture with hands until thoroughly combined and a soft dough forms.
One a floured cutting board, pat the dough into a 1/2-inch thick disc and cut with biscuit cutter or the rim of a glass. Place biscuits on a cookie sheet and bake for 12 minutes or until golden brown.






I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 


Looks like these turned out great! I’m surprised they didn’t call for brushing some egg on top of the biscuits before cooking, that might get that top a little crispier…I totally want to make some of these Saturday morning.
These look very good to me. I have a favorite biscuit recipe, but want to give these a try because of the buttermilk.
Have been following your blog for a while. Nice blog!
I agree Steph. Or maybe just melted butter to give it the color.
If you want to compare even more recipes from many of the popular sites, take a look at RecipeComparison.com. Just search for “buttermilk biscuits” and you’ll see all the ingredients nicely laid out in a table with a link to jump directly to each recipe.
I worked at a KFC in the mid-90s. I had privy to the ingredients lists and methods. The biscuits came frozen and had egg in the dough. We brushed the tops after baking with butter-flavored oil that is commonly used in the restaurant industry. I remember thinking that the egg was unusual; I hadn’t seen many biscuit recipes calling for egg, and I have been baking since I was 8.
kfc.com does not list eggs in their food allergy listing for the biscuits, just an fyi
I, too, worked at a KFC when I was a teenager. The biscuits were not frozen. It was a bag mix and we mixed it with a large tub of shortening. Then mixed, rolled, cut and baked. We topped with a “liquid butter” substance fresh from the oven. They may make them frozen now, but they didn’t in the early 90′s.
Oh, and there are NO eggs in the mix. Otherwise, it would be a cake, not a biscuit. That is common baking “science”.