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Sweet Potato Biscuits
I made Sweet Potato Biscuits for the first time on Thanksgiving a few years ago. My family had decided to ditch the traditional Thanksgiving menu, in favor of trying all new recipes. We swapped the turkey for a huge beef roast and pitched in to make side dishes like Cauliflower Gratin, Tuscan Kale Salad, and Green Bean Salad.
Oh man, it was a feast. Instead of the usual yeast rolls, I made Martha Stewart’s Sweet Potato Biscuits. They quickly gained a spot on our regular recipe rotation. They are delicious, whether drizzled with butter and honey or served as a platform for biscuits & gravy.
I used to only associate sweet potatoes with one super sweet holiday side dish topped with mini marshmallows, but they are a tasty way to add a little color to any winter day. Sweet potatoes are a healthy, economical option in the produce department this time of year.
For this recipe, look for that trademark orange sweet potato; often they are labeled as Jewel or Garnet Yams. Check out our post onthe difference between yams and sweet potatoes to better understand what to look for.
Seriously, that color is ridiculous. In fact, the first time I was pulsing the sweet potato puree in my food processor, I was so excited about the color that I called my husband into the kitchen to see it. He happily humored me and even acted interested. What a great guy. My apologies if your life isn’t as exciting as ours.
The puree called for in this recipe will give you more than needed for these biscuits. Which is great if, like me, you have a hungry, sweet (potato eating) baby in the house. It makes the silkiest, smoothest baby food puree.
Sweet potato puree will keep in either the refrigerator or the freezer. Pull it out for another batch of biscuits or stir it into other dishes. For example, I added two big spoonfuls to beef stew last night. Delicious.
Sweet Potato Biscuits are light and flaky and buttery. They’re everything a biscuit should be with just a touch of sweetness. Even if you have never made biscuits from scratch before, this recipe is totally doable for a beginning baker.
After mixing together the dry ingredients, you cut in the butter until you have small pea-sized pieces throughout the flour. Normally, I hate this tedious step. However, by grating the butter with a cheese grater, it makes this step so simple. The butter stays cold and gets incorporated throughout the dough in small bits which is exactly what you want to produce flaky layers of buttery goodness.
Adapted from a Martha Stewart recipe. Makes 8 biscuits.
Ingredients
1 3/4 cups flour 2 T. brown sugar 2 1/2 t. baking powder 3/4 t. salt 1/2 t. baking soda 6 T. chilled unsalted butter (learn about ) 3/4 cup Sweet-Potato Puree (steps below) 1/3 cup buttermilk or milk
In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. Cut or grate in the butter.
In a small bowl, whisk together the purée and buttermilk; stir into the flour mixture until combined.
Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface, and knead very gently until dough comes together but is still slightly lumpy, five or six times. Shape into a disk, and pat to an even 1″ thickness.
With a floured 2-inch biscuit cutter, cut out biscuits as close together as possible. Gather together scraps, and repeat to cut out more biscuits.
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Coat an 8-inch cake pan with butter or cooking spray. Arrange biscuits snugly in pan to help them stay upright.
Bake until golden, 20-24 minutes.
Homemade Sweet Potato Puree
3 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks water
In a large saucepan, cover the sweet potatoes with water. Bring to a boil. Cook until tender, 15-20 minutes.
Drain potatoes; puree in a food processor or blender. Cool on the counter or in the refrigerator. Store in the refrigerator or freezer.
I am ready to replace my bent, rusty (ugh, it’s true) biscuit cutters with these RSVP Round Biscuit Cutters(Amazon). The set of four are sturdy and right around $10, with over 600 reviews and a 4.5-star rating.
Looking for more delicious Fall recipes?
Findmore frugal homemaking posts hereanda list of amazing recipes here.
The secret to the best biscuits is using very cold butter and baking powder. We've made a lot of biscuits, but this easy biscuits recipe is the one we turn to the most!
The butter version rises the highest — look at those flaky layers! The shortening biscuit is slightly shorter and a bit drier, too. Butter contains a bit of water, which helps create steam and gives baked goods a boost.
Overworking the dough will not only create a tough biscuit instead of a tender biscuit, but can also result in a flatter biscuit. The more you play with the dough, the warmer the dough becomes. If the fat becomes too warm it will melt into the flour and they won't rise as tall.
While biscuits receive some leavening power from chemical sources — baking powder and baking soda — the difference between serviceable and greatness comes from the extra rise that steam provides. In order to generate steam, the oven must be set at a minimum of 425 degrees for at least 10 minutes prior to baking.
White wheat in general is around 9-12% protein, while the hard reds are 11-15%. As far as brands of flour, White Lily “all-purpose” flour has been my go-to for biscuit making. It's a soft red winter wheat, and the low protein and low gluten content keep biscuits from becoming too dense.
The heavy cream adds flavor to the biscuit by adding a little more fat and helps hydrate the dough. The extra fat in the heavy cream is helpful because buttermilk in stores is often “low-fat” buttermilk.
*Substitute buttermilk, light cream, or heavy cream for the whole milk, if you prefer; use enough of whatever liquid you choose to bring the dough together readily, without you having to work it too much. The higher-fat liquid you use, the more tender and richer-tasting your biscuits will be.
Flavor-wise, the Crisco biscuits seemed to be drier and had a pastier flavor profile compared to the butter biscuits. My team members and I also found that the biscuits made with Crisco produced the greatest height. However, other teams found that the biscuits made with butter produced the greatest height.
When baking buttery treats like biscuits, the key is to bake them at a temperature where the water in the butter turns quickly to steam. This steam is a big part of how the biscuits achieve their height, as it evaporates up and out.
The reason: The butter has not been incorporated evenly, leaving pockets of your cooked biscuits that are dry, dense, and filled with flour. But even if you properly mix your biscuits, if your butter pieces are too large or inconsistently sized they may not get distributed evenly throughout the dough.
So what's the final verdict? Butter is the winner here. The butter biscuits were moister with that wonderful butter taste and melt-in-your mouth texture. I'd be curious to test out substituting half or just two tablespoons of the butter with shortening to see if you get the best of both.
TIP #1: Use buttermilk or regular milk with 1 teaspoon of vinegar. The acid in the buttermilk and vinegar reacts with the baking powder, creating lift, lightness, and rise in the biscuits.
Make a batch of the basic biscuit dough, then chill until firm, roll out and cut out shapes as above. Bake on a non-stick baking tray for 10-12 minutes until pale golden. Carefully transfer to a wire rack to cool and crisp up.
A good biscuit is symmetrical in shape, has vertical sides, a level and fairly smooth top, and is covered with a tender, golden brown crust. The inside is light, fluffy, flaky, creamy white, free from yellow or brown spots, and the small 'holes are evenly distributed.
Pillai became known in India as the 'Biscuit King' or 'Biscuit Baron'. He took over Nabisco's other Asian subsidiaries. Pillai then established links with Boussois-Souchon-Neuvesel (BSN), the French food company, and by 1989 controlled six Asian companies worth over US$400 million.
The two keys to success in making the best biscuits are handling the dough as little as possible as well as using very cold solid fat (butter, shortening, or lard) and cold liquid. When the biscuits hit the oven, the cold liquid will start to evaporate creating steam which will help our biscuits get very tall.
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