Recipe: Sweet Potato Biscuits

I had given up on making biscuits. Hadn’t made them in years. Bread baking in general is not my forte. Everytime I made biscuits they disappointed me to a certain degree. Either they didn’t rise at all or they rose more on one side than the other producing a sorry looking, lop-sided biscuit.

Not worth it I decided.

Plus, to be honest with you, unlike many Southerners, I didn’t grow up eating homemade biscuits. In fact, I rarely remember eating bread with our meals. If we did, it was crescent rolls (the Pilsbury kind) or toasted pita bread.

But I’ve really been on a sweet potato kick and hence, I couldn’t resist making these sweet potato biscuits. The sweet potato and brown sugar adds a hint of sweetness, but not too much. They’d be wonderful with some whipped cinnamon honey. I couldn’t resist eating them plain. I didn’t want anything to overpower the subtle flavor of the sweet potato.

The sweet potato adds some density to the dough, so don’t expect them to rise the way a normal biscuit would. For those of us who can’t get a normal biscuit to rise, that’s welcome news. Even still, they’re light and delicious whether eaten straight from the oven or for breakfast the next day.

The trick to making biscuits is to not overwork the dough and to start with very cold ingredients. I usually cut the butter up and stick it in the freezer for 5 minutes or so. The buttermilk and sweet potato should also be very cold. For the sweet potato, I baked a sweet potato in the oven until it was very soft and scooped the pulp out and mashed it well with a fork. No need to add anything to it.

Sweet Potato Biscuits

• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for kneading
• 2 tablespoons light brown sugar
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 6 tablespoons chilled unsalted butter, plus 1/2 tablespoon melted butter, plus more for pan
• 3/4 cup mashed sweet potato, chilled
• 1/3 cup buttermilk

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda.
3. With a pastry blender or using your fingers, cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse meal (should be a few pea sized lumps).
4. In a small bowl whisk together sweet potato and buttermilk. Stir into flour mixture just until combined, mixing as little as possible.
5. Place dough on a lightly floured surface and knead gently until dough is shaped enough to cut biscuits. If it is too wet, work a little more flour in.

Recipe Source: Martha Stewart