The Best Ever Blackberry-Lemon Biscuits

This recipe is a spin-off from The Best Ever Sweet Blueberry Biscuits I posted recently and the Blackberry-Lemon Clafoutis recipe I shared a few months ago. These sweet blackberry-lemon biscuits are deliciously fruity and lemony, with a hint of that old-fashioned southern biscuit saltiness. I love it!

For brunch, I started by frying a few pieces of bacon to prepare the pan for baking and to provide a savory garnish. There’s nothing like the smell of bacon on a sunny Sunday morning! We gobbled them up in a few days, and as always, the last one was split between my husband and me. I just can’t hog the last one, especially when we loved them so much.

These biscuits bring a whole new level of amazing to breakfast, brunch, or even dessert. Loaded with plump, ripe blackberries and topped with a bright, zesty lemon glaze, they are incredibly soft and tender with a deliciously golden top and bottom. They combine everything you love about traditional Southern buttermilk biscuits with an added burst of fruity sweetness and a touch of buttery goodness. This foolproof recipe delivers biscuits that are a delightful treat perfect for any occasion.

Robin Ward

The Best Ever Blackberry-Lemon Biscuits

These easy homemade blackberry-lemon biscuits are bursting with juicy blackberries and a zesty lemon glaze, combining fruity sweetness with classic Southern charm. Soft, tender, and golden, they're perfect for breakfast, brunch, or dessert.

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Servings: 8

Course: #brunch, Breakfast, Dessert

Cuisine: American, Southern

Ingredients Equipment Method

Ingredients

  

Biscuits: (adjusted from the sweet blueberry biscuit post)

• 2 cups all-purpose flour (I used White Lily, a flour available in most Southern stores. King Arthur brand works too.)
• 1 Tbsp baking powder
• 1½ tsp salt
• ½ tsp cinnamon
• 3 Tbsp sugar
• 1 stick unsalted butter, very cold (I freeze mine.)
• ¾-ish cup buttermilk (Use enough until the dough is just barely wet enough.)
• 1 cup frozen blackberries (We used fresh blackberries tht had been frozen overnight.)
• ½ stick melted salted butter (for brushing on top of biscuits)
• 1½ tsp grated lemon zest

For glaze:

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• ½ stick butter, melted
• zest of 1 lemon
• 1 Tbsp + 1 tsp lemon juice
• an extra splash of lemon juice and sugar for sprinkling on the berries

Equipment

• 1 cast-iron skillet (or round cake pan)

Method

 

1. To heighten the berry taste, put berries in a small bowl, sprinkle with some lemon juice and sugar. Drain any juice from berries just prior to using in the recipe.
2. For preparing the butter, you have two options: Cut the butter into small pieces, place them on a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet, and freeze for at least 10 minutes. Or, freeze a whole stick of butter for grating using a box grater. Choose the method that suits your needs best.
3. Prepare cast iron skillet with a tiny amount of bacon grease, if available. Easiest thing: fry a piece of bacon, wipe out the pan, and you're good to go!
4. Toss berries with about 1 Tablespoon of lemon juice and 1 Tablespoon of sugar.
5. Preheat oven to 500 degrees F.
6. Stir the glaze ingredients together (powdered sugar butter, lemon zest, and lemon juice). Make the the powdered sugar is completely dissolved.
7. Combine all the dry ingredients which include flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, cinnamon, and lemon zest. Next, incorporate the cold unsalted butter into the mixture. You can either cut or grate the butter. Continue this process until the butter pieces are about the size of peas and are well mixed in. Then, add buttermilk. Pour it in slowly, just until the dough starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl. Stir the mixture until the ingredients are just combined.
8. Before you start kneading, prepare a large area for this process. You might find a large cutting board useful for easy clean-up. Sprinkle some flour on this area. Place the dough on the floured surface and sprinkle some more flour over the dough. Press the dough out, there’s no need to use a rolling pin, and flatten it to about half an inch thickness. Place blackberries over the dough. Fold the edge of the dough over the berries to completely enclose them and then flatten it back out to about 1-inch thickness. The thicker the dough, the better, because the biscuits rise beautifully! As the berries defrost, they will likely start to bleed onto the dough, and you will start to see flecks of purple.
9. With a dough scraper, knife, biscuit cutter, or round coffee mug, cut into 8 biscuits or any number and shape you want.
10. Bake at 500 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes. Somewhere around 7 to 8 minutes, take the skillet out of the oven and brush the biscuits with melted salted butter. This is an integral part of the baking process. When you begin to see the tops lightly brown (and the blackberries burst), take them out. The temperature in the middle of the biscuits will remain very hot once out of the oven and will continue the cooking process.
11. Please note that some people have reported needing to bake their biscuits for longer than 15 minutes. That’s why the baking time has been extended to 20 minutes. However, it’s crucial to keep a close eye on them! The biscuits can quickly go from perfectly baked to burnt in just a few seconds.
12. When you take the biscuits out of the oven, let the pan cool for about 10 minutes before pouring the glaze over them. Use as much or as little glaze as desired. These biscuits taste best the next day, but who actually waits that long—except maybe pie bakers!

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