Sourdough Biscuits – Long Fermented

Creating and maintaining a sourdough starter seems really hard and difficult to begin with. But once you get going, you will see how easy it really is, and maintaining it will just become part of your routine.

Mine is still alive after 8 years, and it is as old as one of my kids.

Even with our move in January to the new farmhouse, we’ve kept ours alive! Honestly, once you get an established starter, it is pretty resilient.

We’ve talked a lot recently about sourdough, and that’s because it is such a staple in our house.

We make sourdough everything. From pancakes, to bread, to flat bread, you name a bread product, and we probably make a sourdough version. It is just a healthier way to eat grains that our whole family really enjoys.

I love starting these sourdough biscuits in the morning the day before I want to bake them; that way, the next morning, they are ready to go.

There is truly nothing like a delicious breakfast with some long-fermented sourdough biscuits, topped with homemade jam, butter, or honey.

Tips For Making Long-Fermented Sourdough Biscuits

• Use your hands to mix it up. Hands are my favorite kitchen tool. They are so… handy (wink, wink). 
• If you have a gluten sensitivity, try to ferment these biscuits for 24 hours. 
• Don’t forget to feed your starter 4-8 hours before making this recipe.
• Cut your biscuits using a biscuit cutter, mason jar, cookie cutter… really, anything round, or you could just cut them into squares.

Ingredients you will need for sourdough biscuits:

8 Tbsp cold butter, cut into chunks

1.5 cups of flour – I used freshly milled whole wheat white flour

1 cup of fed sourdough starter* 

1 Tbsp honey

3/4 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

*Fed sourdough starter is a sourdough starter that has been given equal parts water and flour, mixed, and allowed to sit at room temperature at least 4-12 hours.

How To Make Long-Fermented Sourdough Biscuits Video

How To Make Long-Fermented Sourdough Biscuits

1. Chop up cold butter into chunks and add to a large bowl. 
2. Add flour to the butter.
3. Cut butter into flour; I usually just use my hands to massage the flour and butter together until it starts to form a ball.
4. Add 1 cup of fed sourdough starter.
5. Add honey and stir until nicely incorporated.
6. Place a clean tea towel over bowl and allow to sit at room temperature at least 8-24 hours. This is based on your level of tolerance to gluten and also your taste preference. The longer it sits out, the more sour it will get.
7. The next day, add baking soda, baking powder, and salt to the fermented dough
8. Mix everything together well. I like to use my fingers
9. Roll out biscuits onto a lightly floured surface and cut. I like to use an antique measuring cup, but you could also use a mason jar, or anything round.
10. Place onto a well-seasoned cast iron skillet or a glass baking dish. This is just like the sourdough peach cobbler recipe.
11. For a little added height, you can allow the biscuits to rise again for 30 minutes to an hour in a warm place before baking.
12. Bake in a 400 degree oven for 14 -20 minutes.

Benefits of sourdough

Soaking, sprouting, or fermenting wheat reduces the amount of phytic acid content in wheat products. Properly preparing grains makes the part of the grain that is hard to digest much more easily digestible, and allows you to more easily absorb nutrients.

Long-fermented sourdough helps break down the phytic acid and the gluten even more. Those who are sensitive to gluten may be able to tolerate sourdough products that have been fermented for 24 hours. It also adds a depth of flavor that you can not get from a store without going to an artisan bakery. 

You can find out how to make a sourdough starter here.

Adapting recipe for long fermentation:

Say you already have a recipe you love, like pancakes or biscuits, and you want to make it a sourdough recipe that is long-fermented. To alter the recipe, you want to mix the sourdough starter, all the grains the recipe calls for, and the liquid component of the recipe like oil, melted coconut oil, honey, water, etc., and let that combination sit on the counter before adding the rest of your ingredients the next day.

Personally, I would be comfortable adding in raw milk at this step, but if it is pasteurized milk, then I’m not sure about that. Use your own discretion if your recipe calls for dairy.

If you just combine all the flour and the sourdough starter, you may find that the dough becomes too dry, so it is a good idea to combine all the liquid ingredients together with the flour.

Some recipes may just seem too dry, even when adding all the liquids. You can account for this if it calls for sugar; you could try to swap honey in for the sugar to give it more liquid, or you may just have to add as much of the flour as you possibly can to the starter, and then the next day add in the rest of it. That way, you have soaked most of the flour, but not all of it.

I normally do not add eggs in as part of the liquid, since I do not want those sitting out for 8-24 hours on the counter.

Hopefully that makes sense, but those are just a few tips that have helped me adapt sourdough recipe to be long-fermented recipes.

Find More Farmhouse Family Favorite Sourdough Recipes:

Sourdough Peach Cobbler Recipe

How To Make Sourdough Waffles

Sourdough Pizza | Mini Pizzas on Sourdough English Muffin

Cinnamon Maple Sourdough Apple Pie

How to Make Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread

Long-Fermented Sourdough Biscuits Recipe Card