Air Fryer Biscuits

Air Fryer Biscuits (cookies) are quick and easy to make! Combining simple ingredients and your favorite flavor combo to rock your socks.

Recipes like my Cornflake Biscuits, Tim Tam Slice and Anzac Biscuits (Rolled Oat Biscuits) are all about the sweet treats we know and love so much!

My Golden Syrup Cornflake Cakes (Honey Crackles) deliver taste, texture and crunch!

Did you know that in Australia we call 'cookies', 'biscuits'. Yup, they are the same thing but known by totally different names!

In fact, my understanding of American 'biscuits' is that they are what we in the land of Oz would call 'scones'. Fluffy sweet treats that are bliss when topped with jam and cream.

Sounds yum, but today, we are going to made biscuits (cookies) in the Air Fryer and talk about all the tips and tricks to make them worthy of a gift to the Cookie Monster!

Jump to:

• Recipe highlights
• Ingredients
• Instructions
• Frequently asked questions
• Expert tips
• 📖 Recipe

Recipe highlights

This recipe is not only quick and easy but it is fun!

Use a combination of sprinkles, chocolate chips, pecans and icing sugar to convert plain butter biscuits into sweet treats with pops of colour and yum.

Or keep them as plain biscuits for a melt in your mouth shortbread of sorts!

The biscuit dough can also be frozen and the biscuits cooked from frozen, meaning you can make the recipe in advance, pop it in the freezer and grab it out as needed.

We only use 4 ingredients for the batter (butter, icing sugar, flour and vanilla) and you can let your imagination run wild with flavor combinations and textures!

Air Fryer Biscuits from Scratch

Making air fryer biscuits from scratch is a super simple engaging activity!

No need to turn on the oven and wait for it to heat. We simply pop the raw biscuits into the air fryer and let it do its magical thing.

You will need a couple of tools for this recipe, such as a mini cook scoop, flat utensil, baking rack and chopping board.

Ingredients

The ingredients needed for the recipe are shown in the photo below. This is the basic combination for simple biscuits.

To the side are the choc chips, sprinkles, pecans and icing sugar which give options for different flavour combos.

As you can see, the recipe calls for butter:

• butter: grab this out of the fridge as soon as you know you are going to make the recipe. We use hand held electric beaters to beat the butter and this is easier to do if the butter is soft.
• icing sugar: in Australia it is called this, but in other parts of the world, it can be known as confectioners sugar or powdered sugar. This is the soft white sugar (not granulated) that is often used as a dusting to decorate a cake. We need to sift this ingredient.
• flour: we use plain white flour and also need to sift this ingredient.

Instructions

Here are the step by step instructions to make biscuits in your Air Fryer.

We start by making the cookie dough. You will need a mixing bowl, hand held beaters and a cookie scoop.

• Add softened butter to mixing bowl (photo 1)
• Use electric beaters to beat butter till soft (photo 2)
• Add vanilla, continue to mix in (photo 3)
• Slowly add icing sugar to butter, beating as you go (photo 4)

The butter is much easier to beat when it is a little soft as opposed to just removed from the fridge.

So I recommend, the 1st thing you do is grab it out of the fridge, pop it on the bench and then get everything else ready, this will give it time to soften.

I also recommend placing a tea towel or silicon mat underneath your mixing bowl as you work. This is because if the butter is too hard to start, it is easy for the whole bowl to move with the butter as it is being beaten. The tea towel or mat will give it a little grip to ensure it stays on the bench.

• Keep mixing the icing sugar and butter till combined (photo 5)
• Gradually mix the sifted flour into the butter and sugar mix (photo 6)
• Use a spoon and continue to stir the mixture till consistent (photo 7)
• Sprinkles, chocolate chips, nuts and icing sugar to decorate (photo 8)

For both the icing sugar and flour, it is easier to work it into the butter and vanilla mix if you pour ½ in at a time. This allows you to mix that in, then slowly add the rest.

Air Fryer Biscuits tips and tricks

If you find once the flour has been mixed into the batter, it becomes too hard to continue to use the electric beaters, simply remove them and use a wooden spoon to mix the batter till all of the dry ingredients are thoroughly mixed in and it forms a soft, smooth batter.

I use a combination of coloured sprinkles (hundreds and thousands), chocolate chips, pecans and icing sugar for my biscuits.

This is to show you the diversity that the batter allows.

You can choose to make one whole batch of sugar cookies, or sprinkle cookies, chocolate chip biscuits or pecan biscuits, whichever flavour is your favorite.

Or have a little fun with it and make small batches of different flavours of the biscuits!

• Scoop the batter into balls and roll in sprinkles (photo 9)
• Repeat till all biscuits are decorated (photo 10)
• Place them into the Air Fryer basket, spread out a little (photo 11)
• Cook the biscuits for 8-10 mins (photo 12)

Homemade Biscuits in Air Fryer

I find it easiest to use a cookie scoop when rolling the biscuits. If you don't have one you can use a teaspoon and your hands to roll into individual biscuits.

The batter will be soft and pliable.

Use a small bowl and fill it with your sprinkles/chocolate chips/nuts/powdered sugar as this will allow you a good work flow where you can roll, decorate and set aside as you go.

Once the biscuits are rolled, you can gently press them from the top with the tip of your fingers to flatten the balls slightly. This will ensure they spread out as they are cooking.

Due to the perforated basket base of the air fryer (holes). I don't recommend adding the raw biscuits to the basket and then pushing them down as some of the batter will go through the holes. Whilst they would still cook ok and there would be no change in taste, it means that the biscuit base is not flat but a little bumpy.

If you have a look at the photo above, you can see the raw pecan biscuits in the Air Fryer. They need to be spread out as the biscuits will flatten and spread slightly when cooking and you don't want them to form one giant biscuit (well, this would be delicious, though, yes? haha)

Air Fryer Cookies no parchment paper

I don't recommend using baking paper or aluminium foil for this recipe.

This is because the biscuits are very light. So even if you put 4 of them into the Air Fryer basket on baking paper, the air flow would cause the biscuits and paper to move around, so whilst the biscuits would still cook, they would be squished as the moving paper doesn't sit flat.

I also don't recommend using spray oil in the Air Fryer when making biscuits. It is not necessary as they don't stick to the base of the basket.

How long do biscuits take to cook in Air Fryer?

You will find that the biscuits take 10 mins to cook.

They will turn a lovely golden colour when they do. When they are cooked, they will still be soft to the touch (and hot) so don't be alarmed if you pull the basket out, see that they look cooked, press the tip of your finger onto one and meet no resistance. This is normal.

Once they are cooked as the Air Fryer basket will also be very hot, I recommend sitting them in there for a minute or so before moving onto the next batch.

When they are slightly cooled, you can use a flexible turner (one of those flat silicon things) to push under the biscuits and one by one remove them from the Air Fryer and place on a cooling rack.

Much the same as when you oven bake biscuits, the biscuits will firm up as they cool and a muffin tin or baking rack is the essential tool to allow them to do this.

If you have a look at the photo above, you can see my stack of Air Fryer biscuits. These have sat on the cooling rack for around 10 mins, are perfectly firm and delightfully crunchy!

If you have a look at the photo above, you will see the varieties I did when making this recipe to show you what is possible and give you examples of all of the fun you can have!

The chocolate chips will melt as they air fry, so use extra care when removing them from the basket (licking hot chocolate off your hand as you go!).

The pecan biscuits can be served plain or dusted with a little icing sugar for extra posh looking biscuits!

Frequently asked questions

Can you bake in your Air Fryer?

Yes, you can bake in your Air Fryer.

They are such versatile and accommodating appliances that you are practically unlimited in what you can do in your Air Fryer.

The way to think about it is that it is more like a mini oven than it is a fryer.

You can bake, fry, cook, heat, reheat and more in your Air Fryer!

How long do you put biscuits in your Air Fryer?

Using this recipe, it takes 8-10 mins to cook the biscuits in the Air Fryer.

They will be slightly soft when cooked, however, they firm up as they cook.

Why didn't my biscuits spread?

Depending on the ingredients in the biscuit batter, some biscuits won't naturally spread if heaped in one small high ball when portioned.

When making Air Fryer biscuits, I recommend using a cookie scoop to make each biscuit the same size and then using a chopping board to place them when 'rolled'. You can press down slightly onto the chopping board to make the biscuit dough spread slightly before Air Frying them.

Expert tips

This is what I have learnt that will help you master the recipe from the 1st time and every following time:

• use a mini ice cream scoop/cookie scoop to get uniform size biscuits
• don't push the biscuits down when in the Air Fryer basket the way that you would onto a flat baking tray as some of the biscuit batter will go through the holes of the basket so the biscuit base won't be flat
• rather, use the cookie scoop, then place balls of cookie dough onto chopping board and push them down slightly on there
• don't make the biscuits too thin as the recipe is very buttery and they will break apart it too thin
• spread the individual biscuits apart from each other so that when they expand when cooking they don't bump into each other and form one bug 'biscuit'
• baking paper has a tendency to 'fly around' in the Air Fryer. It is not necessary to use it for this recipe. However, if you do, ensure it is weighed down sufficiently with biscuits so that it won't move, fly around during the cook time.

Adrianne xx

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