One-Bowl Cheese Tea Biscuits - The Baked Collective (2024)

This recipe for easy cheese biscuits is great to keep in your back pocket in case company pops in, or you want a quick afternoon snack. This cheese tea biscuits recipe belongs to Elodie Gallien, the grandmother of our Halifax-based team member, Kelly Neil. Tea biscuits are a kitchen staple in the Maritimes, and are, for many East Coasters, a nostalgic reminder of family. Most Maritimers can picture themselves gathered with family at the table, a plate of fresh tea biscuits between them.

For a full East Coast inspired meal, make an old-fashioned blueberry buckle for dessert and serve your biscuits alongside a bowl of Nova Scotia seafood chowder.

Ingredients

Ingredient Notes and Substitutions

• Flour: substitute whole wheat if preferred, but note that the biscuits will likely need more milk. Sub up to 50% with whole wheat flour to keep a nice light biscuit.
• Cheese: an aged, sharp cheddar cheese is best, but any type of cheddar can be used. Other hard cheeses can be substituted or mixed with cheddar.
• Milk: buttermilk is a terrific substitution for milk.

How to Make Cheese Biscuits

Step 1: whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt together in a bowl. Add the butter and use a pastry blender or fork to combine it with the flour until the mixture is coarse and sandy. Freeze for half an hour.

Step 2: remove the flour mixture from the freezer and add the grated cheese. Stir everything togetherwith a fork to combine and make a well in the middle.

Step 3: pour in the milk. Stir everything together with the fork until no dry bits of flour remain on the bottom of the bowl.

Step 4: pat the dough out with your hands and cut into rounds, repeating until all of the dough has been used.

Step 5: place the biscuits onto a prepared baking sheet and brush the top of each with milk.

Step 6: bake the biscuits until golden. Remove them from the oven and let the pan cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes before serving.

Top Tips

• Freeze the bowl: freezing room temperature butter mixed with flour is an easy method, and yields a tender flaky biscuit. If you don't have time, make this recipe the traditional way with cold or frozen grated butter.
• Use cold ingredients: keep the milk and grated cheese cold in the fridge until you need it. Cold ingredients will make for taller, flakier biscuits.
• Make squares instead: a good way to get 12 perfectly-sized biscuits is to pat or roll the dough into a rectangle shape and slice it with a knife into 12 even portions.

Recipe Notes

Do not use pre-shredded cheese. Bagged, shredded cheese generally has a light coating of cornstarch to prevent it clumping and sticking together in the bag. It doesn't melt as well as cheese you grate by hand yourself.

You can use a rolling pin for the dough if you don't want to pat it out with your hands.

How to Store

Storage: keep the biscuits in a sealed container at room temperature for up to three days.

Freezing: place cooled biscuits into an airtight container and freeze for up to a month. It's best to freeze them the day they're baked. To serve, remove from the bag and gently defrost in the microwave until warm, or let sit at room temperature until thawed.

FAQ

More Cheesy Bakes

Easy Cheese Tea Biscuits

This easy cheese tea biscuits recipe is great to keep in your back pocket in case company pops in, or you want a quick snack with tea.

Yield: 12 biscuits

Nutrition

Serving: 1biscuit | Calories: 183kcal | Carbohydrates: 18g | Protein: 6g | Fat: 10g | Saturated Fat: 6g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.4g | Monounsaturated Fat: 2g | Trans Fat: 0.2g | Cholesterol: 27mg | Sodium: 433mg | Potassium: 66mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 1g | Vitamin A: 297IU | Calcium: 190mg | Iron: 1mg

Nutrition is provided as a courtesy and is an estimate. If this information is important to you, please have it verified independently.