Micah A. Leal
Biscuits can be a finicky business. If the butter isn’t cold enough and if the liquid ingredients aren’t right, the biscuits will come out dense and flat. This is sadly the pitfall of many sweet potato biscuit recipes. While the sweet potato flavors these biscuits, many recipes don’t account for the added moisture which weighs down the biscuit, preventing it from becoming fluffy and thick.
Our recipe is different—we mix mashed sweet potato into buttermilk so it absorbs easily into the biscuit dough as it’s coming together. We also freeze the biscuits once they’ve been cut and placed in the pan, allowing the butter in the dough to become firm again before baking. This step gives the butter the opportunity to create steam inside the dough when it’s introduced to the high temperature of the oven, causing the inside of the biscuit to lift and become fluffy. A simple egg wash gives the outside of each biscuit a golden brown top while the light orange of the quick bread hints at the cooked sweet potato in the biscuit. With only a slight touch of sweet potato flavor, these biscuits are incredible when eaten with butter and honey. But don’t let that suggestion limit you. We promise these biscuits are just as good served with eggs, bacon, cheese, and any other breakfast biscuit topping you can find.
How to Make It
Step 1
In a mixing bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt until well combined. Using a pastry cutter or your hands, cut butter into flour until only a few pea-size pieces remain. In a separate bowl, stir together buttermilk and sweet potato until homogenous. Add to dry ingredients and use a spoon to mix ingredients together until a shaggy dough forms. Flour your hands and press the dough together until all of the dry ingredients in the bowl are incorporated into 1 large dough mass.
Step 2
Line a 9-inch round metal cake pan with parchment paper and grease with cooking spray. Transfer dough to a well-floured surface. Press the dough down and use a rolling pin to roll the dough out to a 3/4-inch thick disc. Using a 3-inch round cutter, cut out 1 biscuit from the dough and place it in the center of the prepared cake pan. Cut out 4 more biscuit rounds from the dough and place them around the perimeter of the cake pan, allowing them to touch each other and the center biscuit. Reroll the dough scraps to 3/4-inch thickness, and cut out remaining 2 biscuits. Fit them snuggly in the cake pan so all of the biscuits are touching (6 biscuits should be surrounding the biscuit in the center). Transfer to the freezer for at least 1 hour.
Step 3
Preheat oven to 350°F. Whisk together the egg yolk and water. Brush the surface of each biscuit evenly with egg wash. Bake until the tops have become golden brown and the biscuits have baked all the way through, 40 to 45 minutes.
Chef's Notes
To make the mashed sweet potato, wrap sweet potatoes in aluminum foil and roast in a 425°F oven for 1 1/2 hours. Turn off the oven and allow the sweet potatoes to cool in the oven for 2 hours. This allows more of the starches in the sweet potato to transform into complex sugars, making the sweet potato flesh both sweeter and softer. Peel and mash the sweet potatoes.
