How to make Bisquick cinnamon biscuits with a powdered sugar glaze. This is an easy breakfast recipe you can make in a jiffy, with or without raisins. Make the perfect sweet treats for holiday brunch and family gatherings. No rolling pin needed!
It's been so long since I've actually had Hardees cinnamon raisin biscuits, but I still remember how yummy they were. Thankfully, like Bisquick cinnamon sugar muffins, they're super easy to make.
To make these cinnamon Bisquick biscuits all by themselves, you only need 4 ingredients. If you want icing, which I highly recommend, you'll need just a few more.
We used to be able to purchase the actual Bisquick Cinnamon Biscuit mix, but our store doesn't carry it anymore. So I kinda came up with my own version, using a regular Bisquick biscuit mix.
When we'd rather have from scratch, I enjoy making biscuit cinnamon rolls (easy cinnamon rolls) or this more traditional delicious cinnamon rolls recipe.
Why You'll Love These Cinnamon Biscuits
- Bisquick sweet biscuits are drop biscuits, so there is no rolling or cutting out required. How awesome is that?!
- It really is the easiest cinnamon biscuit recipe ever. You only need a handful of ingredients, most of which you likely already have in your pantry.
- It reminds me so much of that Hardees cinnamon biscuit I used to love getting with my mom when I was a kid. There were 2 to every pack, and we'd always share a pack.
What Are Drop Biscuits?
Drop biscuits are just that. They're biscuits you literally drop onto a baking sheet and bake, no rolling or cutting out required.
You can drop the biscuit dough with a simple table spoon like I do, or you can use a large scoop for this. Whatever makes it easier for you, just go with it.
Ingredients and Substitutions Notes:
To make the biscuits, you need 4 simple ingredients, but you'll need a few more glaze ingredients, as well. I highly recommend making the icing to top the biscuits.
- Bisquick Biscuit Mix – If you can find it, I highly recommend the Buttermilk Biscuit Mix. If not, the regular mix will work just fine. You can also make these gluten-free with Gluten Free Bisquick.
- Water – You can substitute milk instead of water; in fact, if you're subbing, I recommend subbing with buttermilk. Reason why is buttermilk actually helps with the leavening process and may give you a fluffier biscuit. If milk is all you have, milk works too, and will likely give a richer flavor to the biscuits.
- Cane Sugar – You can also use granulated sugar.
- Ground Cinnamon – You'll mix this together with the sugar to make cinnamon sugar.
- Salted Butter – When making the icing, you'll need softened butter.
- Pure Vanilla Extract – This will give a distinct vanilla flavor that pairs so well with cinnamon biscuits.
- Powdered Sugar or Confectioners Sugar
- Whole Milk – You can use 2% milk or skim milk, but I highly recommend whole milk for added richness and flavor.
How to Make Bisquick Cinnamon Biscuits
Making Bisquick biscuits is super easy, especially since the instructions are right there on the box. However, making cinnamon biscuits with Bisquick requires just a couple extra biscuit ingredients. Those extra ingredients are sugar and cinnamon.
While you can buy a big box of Bisquick, you can also use 2 of the smaller packets of biscuit mix. Each package of Bisquick biscuit mix weighs 7.5 ounces, so 15 ounces would be 2 of the smaller bags of biscuit mix, which equal out to just a smidge under 3 1/2 cups of biscuit mix.
If you don't have biscuit mix and would rather make homemade biscuits with all-purpose flour, you can do that too. You'll just need to add the cinnamon and sugar to your mixture.
Before getting started, be sure to heat oven to 425° F, and get out an ungreased cookie sheet or baking sheet.
How to Make Cinnamon Sugar
We make a lot of cinnamon toast in our house, or as my oldest likes to call it, poor man's cinnamon roll. If you've never had cinnamon toast, that's another recipe for another day, but your life will never be the same once you try this old school treat.
Anyway, I usually always keep a small spice container of cinnamon and sugar already mixed up and ready to go. This recipe calls for 8 teaspoons of sugar and 2 teaspoons of cinnamon.
- Just add both the cinnamon and sugar to a small bowl, mix it up, and you're ready to make the biscuits.
Mix Everything Together to Make Cinnamon Biscuit Dough
- Add the biscuit mix and water to a large bowl.
- Before mixing into a somewhat sticky dough, add the cinnamon sugar mixture, and then mix everything together really well, 'til a soft dough forms.
How to Bake Cinnamon Drop Biscuits
- Drop dough onto a baking sheet, about 1 to 2 inches apart. As you place biscuits, you can make the biscuits as small or as big as you want. If desired, you can place a sheet of parchment paper on the baking pan before dropping biscuits onto the pan.
- Bake them in a preheated oven at 425° F for 8 to 11 minutes (oven times may vary), until the biscuits turn golden brown.
Make a Simple Icing or Glaze for Your Biscuits
Meanwhile in a separate bowl, mix up a simple powdered sugar icing, much like my favorite sugar cookie icing, but slightly thinner like a glaze.
- Combine the softened or melted butter, vanilla extract, powdered sugar, and milk in a medium bowl.
- When the biscuits are done and while they're still hot, brush the sweet glaze on the top of each warm biscuit with a pastry brush, and let it melt into each biscuit.
Then serve the cinnamon biscuits warm and enjoy every bite. Cinnamon sugar biscuits are best served with a hot cup of coffee or tea, or an ice cold glass of milk.
Alternative Recipe Ingredients to Try
There are a few things you can do to add even more oomph to this cinnamon biscuits recipe…
- Sub brown sugar for half the cane sugar. Brown sugar will give a rich, still sweet, but slightly nutty flavor to the biscuits. It's especially good if you're adding any nuts to the mixture.
- Add raisins. The true Hardees biscuits had raisins in them.
- Mix in chopped walnuts or pecans. Or just top them off with a sprinkling of nuts.
- Add a hint of caramel extract to the frosting.
- Instead of caramel extract, try maple extract.
- Add a little bit of orange zest to either the biscuits or the icing.
Expert Tips and Recipe FAQ's
I've found that Bisquick can make a pretty dry biscuit. 2 things that will help counteract this natural tendency… 1. Don't over-mix the dough. Mix the ingredients just 'til they're mixed and everything is moistened; then drop and bake. 2. You may have added too much biscuit mix; you may need to add a little bit more liquid to counteract the dry dough and get some moisture back into it.
We talked about this above in the ingredient notes. But I thought it necessary to add here too. And yes, you totally can. In fact, if you're subbing, I recommend subbing with buttermilk. Reason why is buttermilk actually helps with the leavening process and may give you a fluffier biscuit. If milk is all you have, milk works too, and will likely give a richer flavor to the biscuits. It may also help add more moisture to the biscuits.
Yes, you can make the dough the night before, then bake the biscuits the next morning. In fact, refrigerating the dough overnight may actually help to make a fluffier biscuit.
Yes, you can freeze cinnamon biscuits baked or unbaked. If freezing unbaked, drop the biscuits onto a wax paper lined cookie sheet of your choice, and freeze them for about an hour so the dough is no longer sticky. Then remove them from the freezer, and place the biscuits in an airtight container or freezer bag, and place them back in the freezer. If freezing baked, allow the biscuits to cool before placing in an airtight container or freezer bag. I would recommend waiting to glaze them right before serving, just so you don't have the added frustration of trying to keep the frosting intact while storing and freezing.
If you decide not to add icing to the biscuits, you can keep them in an airtight container out on the counter. If you decide to glaze them, since that glaze is a milk-based recipe, you may want to keep them in an airtight container in the fridge. They should keep for 2-3 days.
More Bisquick Recipes You May Enjoy for Breakfast:
If you love this Bisquick cinnamon biscuit recipe as much as I do and you're wondering what can you make with Bisquick, you may enjoy these delicious recipes too…
If you try this recipe, why not leave a star rating in the recipe card right below and/or a review in the comment section further down the page? I always appreciate your feedback. You can also follow me on Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. And subscribe to my email list too!
Bisquick Cinnamon Biscuits
Ingredients
Cinnamon Biscuits:
- 8 teaspoons cane sugar
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 3 1/2 cups biscuit mix
- 1 cup water
Glaze:
- 2 tablespoons salted butter softened
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- 1/4 cup whole milk
Instructions
- Pre-heat the oven to 425° F.
- In a small mixing bowl, mix together the sugar and cinnamon.
- In a separate large mixing bowl, add the cinnamon sugar, biscuit mix, and water. Mix everything together well, 'til a soft dough forms.
- Drop the biscuits onto an un-greased baking sheet, about 1 to 2 inches apart.
- Bake at 425° F for 8 to 11 minutes (oven times may vary), until the biscuits turn golden brown.
- Meanwhile, mix up the icing in a large mixing bowl, combining the softened butter, vanilla extract, powdered sugar, and milk.
- When the biscuits are done and while they're still hot, brush the sweet glaze on the top of each warm biscuit with a pastry brush, and let it melt into each biscuit.
- Serve immediately while warm.
Notes
If you decide not to add icing to the biscuits, you can keep them in an airtight container out on the counter. If you decide to glaze them, since that glaze is a milk-based recipe, you may want to keep them in an airtight container in the fridge. They should keep for 2-3 days.
Adding raisins ok? Or blue berries if I leave out the cinnamon? Can’t wait to try‼️
Roxanna, sure! That’s a great idea!
I should have added that I used bisquick in the box and not the bag. that may have made a difference. They were still good!
I had some issues and had to make muffins as the batter was too thin. The tops came out solid so I took off the paper on the muffin and immediately dipped them in the icing. I set them aside to let the icing work its way into the muffin. The inside of the muffin is so soft and tastes delish!
Barrie, thank you. Mmmm, the inside of the muffin is my favorite! I wonder why it was too thin; I haven’t had that issue. I’ll have to try making it again, though, just to make sure I have my measurements right… Maybe I’m slightly off on something. Thank you for the feedback!
Same thing happened to me. The batter was really thin like pancake batter. I’m thinking that it should be a 1/2 cup of water. Because there’s a biscuit recipe on the box that requires 2 1/4 cups of bisquick and 2/3 cups of milk. And the pancake recipe on the box requires 2 cups of bisquick and 1 cup of milk.
You can try lowering the amount of water. I haven’t had this issue, though, and we make them quite a bit. I’ll do another run with these and see what we come up with, though, just to double check. Thank you for sharing your experience! It helps me to improve where needed.
For cinnamon sugar, what is the ratio of cinnamon to sugar?
Hi Gwyne, I probably use 1/4-1/2 tsp. of cinnamon and the rest sugar. As long as the mixture is sweeter to the taste than if the cinnamon were to overpower it.
1 cup of water to 15oz of bisquick is too much. Ends up more like pancake batter. Had to add additional 1cup of mix.
Leslie, I use the smaller packages of Bisquick; it’s 15 ounces by weight.
Sorry,
I think I sent comment saying could not find recipe for “simple powdered sugar frosting”—
Just found it… My Bad, as they say!
No problem, Carol!
How about rolling can biscuit in the sugar cinnamon mixture and baking and then glazing!!!….That is if you want to cheat a little!!!
Vickie, that’s a really good idea! Love easier steps.:)
I have never seen the Bisquick package in the grocery store. If I don’t ever find it after I have tried a few more stores what is the amount of Bisquick mix do I use and what is the cooking time. I use Bisquick mix to make my strawberry short cakes, I think these biscuits would be extra special for the strawberry shortcake. Thank You, Janice Snyder Marion, Ia.
Hi Janice, I usually find these smaller mixes with the cornbread and other types of flour/baking supplies. Some stores have had them with the other muffin mixes. They’re about the size of a regular muffin package, so you’d probably use maybe 1-1/2 cups of Bisquick? The packages are not very big. Mmmm, these would make great strawberry short cakes; that sounds delicious!
I have made drop biscuits a million times and never once thought about making them cinnamon! Great idea!
Warning, Amy; they’re kinda addicting.:) Thank you!
okay. so my ORIGINAL comment ended up on the prior post! sorry!
The boys love cinnamon rolls and are always asking me to make them. I will have to try this easy-go-to recipe! Thanks for sharing!
Ruth, lol; these are so much easier than the long process of making cinnamon rolls; hope you enjoy!:)
These look really delicious, and super yummy, too! This is the kind of thing my little girl and I can make together!
Brandi, that’s a great idea!:) They’re really yummy; I love making them on a Saturday/Sunday morning. Thanks for stopping by.:)