How To Achieve Picture-Perfect Tall Scones Or Biscuits Every Time

As a general principle, it's hard to go wrong with biscuits (or their transatlantic cousin, scones). So long as they're not so hard or dry that they're inedible, you'll have a reasonably easy time making biscuits. But how can you get biscuits and scones just right every single time you make them? How can you get those tall, proud specimens standing at attention and dutifully waiting for you to cut them in half and smear them with butter? By simply cutting the dough with a sharp tool and shaping it beforehand, you can get delectable high-rising biscuits every time.

It's true that plenty of people have made delicious biscuits without a sharp cutter, but those people likely have had much more practice with biscuit-making than you do. For most of us, we can count the number of times we've made biscuits without popping them out of a Pillsbury can on one hand. This is just a way of ensuring consistency and quality.

There are those who swear by using a drinking glass to cut biscuits or scones into perfect rounds. Not only does that require a bit more elbow grease on your part, but using a drinking glass results in rough, uneven edges that require you to smush them into shape — and compressed biscuits don't rise nearly as well as those that are cut neatly.

As the name suggests, a biscuit cutter is perfect for getting your biscuits or scones into just the right shape, cutting through the dough efficiently and reliably. But if you heed Alton Brown's advice and avoid "unitaskers" at all costs, you can get the job done just as well with a sharp knife or a pizza cutter. It's okay if you can't manage a perfect circle – the evenness of the cut is far more important than the shape. In fact, if you'd like a neater presentation, a square biscuit or scone will rise up beautifully.