Sweet potato biscuits

Chalk this up to a love of sweet potatoes.  It's only natural we want to find ways to use/cook/eat our favorite ingredients.  Because I love sweet potatoes (a whole lot), I've been wanting to make sweet potato biscuits since I saw them on a cooking show.

The orange hue of these biscuits doesn't come from cheddar; it's from sweet potatoes, mashed and stirred together with buttermilk as the wet ingredients that go into an otherwise rather classic buttermilk biscuit formula.  

I meant to make these around Thanksgiving but didn't get around to it but since I kept thinking about them, I just had to make it happen.  Biscuit making (as well as scone dough, pie dough-making, etc.) makes me a little nervous.  There's often that point when I turn the dough out and it's so crumbly, I wonder how I'll ever bring it together, be able to cut out rounds, and bake them in one piece!  I had that moment here but as it usually happens, things work out and I'm very happy these biscuits turned out well in the end.  

They've got the classic crunchy, buttery sides and edges that's just so hard to stop eating, and as for the sweet potato part - it brings a slight sweetness into the picture. I don't know if you'd be able to identify the taste of sweet potatoes specifically (I'd have to say, probably not...) but it adds that little sweetness.  I also like the color and hopefully, there's some goodness to be had from the nutrients from the sweet potato.

I baked half the batch and froze the rest for another night.  I see soup, with a side of sweet potato biscuits, for dinner in the near future.


For this recipe, you need to start by cooking one medium-size sweet potato.  While the microwave is certainly an option in a rush, I roasted it the way I normally do - in a 350 degree oven for about 45 minutes, or until the sweet potato is soft throughout. You can take care of this ahead of time and roast the sweet potato the day before since it needs to be chilled.

I'd say you're looking for about a cup of sweet potato, mashed.  Whisk it together with 2 tablespoons of light brown sugar and then, 3/4 cup of cold buttermilk.

I cut a stick of cold butter into the flour and other dry ingredients and then stir in the sweet potato mixture.  Here's the hard part for me!

As we all knows, sometimes the cooking/baking process isn't as pretty as the finished picture!

It's my messy reality!  I pat the dough together best I could.  It was crumbly and I am not confident about it but press on.  I use a 2 1/2 inch round to cut out circles.  I only managed to cut out 8 (reusing scrapes once) and boy, I was just relieved to get so far.

Instead of brushing the tops of the biscuits with heavy cream, I simply used some more buttermilk that I'd already used for the biscuits themselves.  The biscuits may not turn out as golden but it eliminates waste when you don't have extra cream on hand.

We ate 4 of these and I froze the rest for another day.  You can never stock your freezer enough!

Recipe:

Sweet Potato Biscuits
Adapted from Bobby Flay

- Makes about 8 (2 1/2 inch round) biscuits - 

1 medium sweet potato
2 tablespoons light brown sugar
3/4 cup cold buttermilk
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon coarse salt
1 stick (8 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
Heavy cream, or additional buttermilk, for brushing

Roast sweet potato: Scrub and pat sweet potato dry.  Prick the surface with a fork and wrap in aluminum foil.  Place on a baking sheet in the oven and set oven temperature to 350 degrees.  Bake until soft throughout, about 45 minutes to an hour.  Let sweet potato cool, then remove the flesh and place in a bowl.  Mash the sweet potato until smooth, then set it in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour to cool.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees to bake biscuits. 

Whisk the cold sweet potato puree together with the brown sugar.  Whisk in the buttermilk.  

In a large bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together.  Add butter pieces and cut them into the flour mixture using a pastry cutter or your fingers until the mixture resembles coarse meal, with a few larger bits of butter (the size of large peas) remaining.  Stir in the sweet potato mixture with a fork and mix gently until a soft dough forms.  

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface.  Pat dough into a 1-inch thick round. Cut out biscuits with a round cutter (I used a 2 1/2 inch size) and place onto a parchment-lined baking sheet, about an inch apart.  Brush the tops of the biscuits with cream or buttermilk.  

Bake until golden brown, about 15 minutes.  Remove from the oven and serve while still warm.