Sweet Potato Buttermilk Biscuits
Happy Friday!! Sending you off into the weekend with these lovely light and fluffy Sweet Potato Buttermilk Biscuits. With the freezing temps, frenetic pace of the holiday season, and general craziness of the world, we need all the comfort food we can get!!
If you’ve spent any time at all on the site, you’ll know that I just adore biscuits, both because of the taste and the fact that they’re a treat you can make sort of last minute, which makes them perfect for a Sunday morning indulgence or an impromptu addition to even a weeknight meal. I also love the fact that they go just as well with dinner as they do with breakfast! I’ve got these and these and these and these and I love ‘em all but for quite some time I’ve had my eye on this sweet potato version, so when I happened to have both leftover sweet potatoes and some buttermilk that had to be used asap, I took this as a sign from the universe and….well, you get the picture.
Guys, these are so yummy and so seasonally right. The cake flour gives the crumb such a smooth texture which contrasts perfectly with the crusty exterior.
And the sweet potatoes add such a nice seasonal little orange hue and that earthy sweetness that make sweet potatoes so darn lovable!
And speaking of love, I think you will be the receiver of a lot more of it, if you whip up a batch of these golden beauties this weekend. Just sayin’….Have a safe and happy one!!xoxo
Sweet Potato Buttermilk Biscuits
Makes about 12-15 biscuits
Prep Time: 15 minutes, plus time to cook the sweet potato (unless you are using leftover); Bake Time: 18-20 minutes
Ingredients
2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
¼ cup cake flour
2 tablespoons sugar
2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
4 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
2 tablespoons cold vegetable shortening, like Crisco, cut into pieces
¾ cup finely mashed or puréed sweet potato (you can either bake a sweet potato or two specifically for this recipe or use leftover ones and purée in the food processor or mash really well by hand)
¾ cup well-shaken buttermilk, plus a tablespoon or two extra
The Recipe
1. Preheat oven to 425ºF and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.
2. Set a sieve over a large bowl and sift the both flours, the sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda all together into the bowl and then whisk them all together to make sure everything is combined well and gets a little aerated.
3. Add in the butter and shortening and use a pasty blender or your fingers to incorporate them until you have a coarse meal with pea-sizes pieces of butter and shortening.
4. In a separate small bowl, combine the ¾ cup buttermilk with the mashed sweet potato, whisking well to blend. Then make a well in the dry ingredients and pour the mixture in. Stir with a wooden spoon just until a shaggy dough forms. If it seems too dry, add another tablespoon of buttermilk and mix just until the dough comes together and is slightly sticky.
5. Flour a board or your counter as well as your hands and turn the dough out onto it. Gently knead the dough a bit and pat it into a thickish square. Use a bench scraper or spatula to lift the dough from the bottom and fold it in half. Repeat the process 3 more times—what this does is create layers in the cooked biscuits. Sometimes, I need to flour my scraper a little too—just depends on how wet the dough is. Now, flour a rolling pin a bit and roll the dough out, from the center out, trying not to handle the dough too much, until it’s about 1-inch thick.
6. Use a 2-inch biscuit cutter to cut out as many rounds as possible, only working in an up and down motion, not twisting side to side. Again, depending on the dough, I’ll flour my cutter between cuts as necessary. Transfer the rounds to the prepared baking sheet, leaving about an inch or two between the biscuits. Re-roll the dough and continue to cut out rounds until all the dough is used up. Depending on the size of your cutter and the thickness of the dough, you’ll get somewhere between 13-15. Brush the tops of the biscuits with a little buttermilk.
7. Bake for about 17-20 minutes, until the biscuits are golden brown on top with darker bottoms. Let cool on the sheet for a few minutes and then serve. Like all biscuits these are best on the day you bake them but also pretty terrific reheated or split and toasted. Store leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 1 week.
Enjoy!
Note: Recipe adapted from The Harvest Baker by Ken Haedrich. I simplified some of the techniques and baked these on parchment instead of buttering the sheet for easier cleanup!
