1. Chill the butter in the freezer for 10-20 minutes. You want the butter to be very cold for flaky, buttery biscuits.
2. Preheat the oven to 350°. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper, or lightly greased foil.
3. Combine flour, baking powder, sugar and salt in a large bowl and mix well. Set aside.
4. Remove butter from the freezer and using a box grater, grate it into a bowl. You could also use a pastry cutter, but grated butter will give you ideal results.
5. Add grated butter to the flour mixture and stir. Using a fork or pastry cutter, cut the butter into the flour mixture until it resembles coarse crumbs.
6. Add milk, using a wooden spoon or rubber spatula to stir until combined. Don’t overwork the dough.
7. Transfer the biscuit dough onto a well-floured surface and use your hands to gently pull it together into a ball. Knead by folding part of it onto itself and turning a quarter turn until just incorporated, about 5 or 6 times.
8. Use your hands to gently flatten the dough to be 1” thick and lightly dust the round biscuit cutter with flour.
9. Making close cuts, press the biscuit cutter straight down with minimal “wiggling”. Drop each biscuit onto the prepared baking sheet less than ½” apart. Repeat until you’ve cut as many biscuits as you can. Pull together and re-work the remaining dough, flattening to get a few more biscuits out of it.
10. Bake for about 12 minutes or until the tops are just beginning to turn light brown.

Optional: brush with salted melted butter immediately after removing from the oven.

Serve warm.