Sweet Potato Biscuits

One Saturday about a little over a year ago, my then-fiance and I stopped by the famed Highlands Bakery in Atlanta, GA for brunch.  I ordered their breakfast plate and opted for the sweet potato biscuit in place of their classic whole wheat one.  And my life was forever changed.

No, I'm only kidding.  Just a little.  Have you ever eaten one of those biscuits?  I absolutely love sweet potatoes and all things carbs (especially nice, fluffy biscuits), so it's not surprising to me that I took a quick liking to these.

I've been looking around the internet for some time trying to find a recipe that I thought might compare, and I settled on Martha Stewart's version.  This recipe is fairly straightforward, and the only time consuming aspect of it is the baking of a sweet potato.  I'm sure you could use canned sweet potato puree though if you were in a pinch.

Even though biscuits are typically a breakfast/brunch food, I made these the other night for dinner along with eggs (over easy for me, scrambled for the hubs) and turkey bacon.  I'm sure these would also go well as a dinner bread too.

*I whipped up some brown sugar cinnamon butter to go with these biscuits.  Just add some cinnamon and brown sugar to some softened butter and you're good to go.  If it gets too soft just stick it back in the fridge for a bit.

Sweet Potato Biscuits from Martha Stewart

• 1 3/4 C all purpose flour, plus more for kneading and shaping
• 2 tbsp light brown sugar (I substituted with sugar in the raw)
• 2 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 6 tbsp chilled unsalted butter, cut into pieces, plus 1/2 tsbp melted butter
• 3/4 C sweet potato puree, chilled
• 1/3 C buttermilk

Preheat oven to 425 degrees and place baking rack on lower shelf.

In large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. 

Dry ingredients mixture

With pastry blender or two knives, cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse meal, with some pea-sized lumps of butter remaining. 

*Make sure you don't forget the melted butter too.  I added this in AFTER I had cut in the chilled butter and it worked well for me.  If you forget it the dough will be incredibly dry and impossible to knead.

I had to call a time-out and give you an "above" view of my

amazing new apron.  Not only is it incredibly stylish, but it also has a button

there on my right side for you to attach the dish towel.  Perfect for keeping your hands 

free in the kitchen!  One of my fave shower gifts :)

Now back to the recipe at hand....In small bowl, whisk together sweet potato puree and buttermilk; stir quickly into flour mixture until combined (do not overmix).

For the puree, I simply baked a sweet potato, chilled it in the fridge,

and then mixed it with a hand mixer.

Turn out dough onto lightly floured surface.  Knead very gently until dough comes together but is still slightly lumpy, five or six times. (If dough is too sticky, work in up to 1/4 cup additional flour.) Shape into a disk, and pat to an even 1-inch thickness. 

With floured 2-inch biscuit cutter, cut out biscuits as close together as possible. Gather together scraps, and repeat to cut out more biscuits (do not reuse scraps more than once).

Butter/Grease an 8-inch cake pan. Arrange biscuits snugly in pan (to help them stay upright). Brush with melted butter. Bake until golden, rotating once, 20 to 24 minutes.

I didn't have an 8-inch round cake pan, so I divided the biscuits up

among 2 pans.  In hindsight I would have gone

with the round cake pan because it would have allowed me to

place the biscuits closer together.  The closer together they are the softer

the edges of each biscuit will be.