Sweet Potato Biscuits
This recipe comes with an explosion of a backstory. Head on below this recipe card to read about THAT story with additional tips & tricks I learned.
Original recipe by Michael McLaughlin, Williams-Sonoma Thanksgiving cookbook.
Earlier I referenced the kitchen disaster. The explosion.
You may be wondering what explosion?
It was somewhere around Thanksgiving 2003. My MIL, SILs, and I hummed and buzzed around the kitchen, prepping our Thanksgiving feast. I was excited to try these Sweet Potato biscuits. My dough was in the making when the timer went off Beep! Beep-ing.
Of course I knew not to do this . . .
but we had run out of counter space,
my hands felt increasing heat through the hot pad,
and I had forgotten something . . .
Pop! Shatter. Clatter. Splatter.
That #OoopsMoment when you remember (too late) that the electric burner was still hot from cooking green beans and you set down a glass dish upon it.
Boy did that glass dish Pop! Shatter. Clatter. Splatter . . . everywhere . . . and INTO the Sweet Potato Biscuit batter. Glass-ridden Sweet Potato Biscuit dough that we had to throw away while we tackled the kitchen cleanup.
Of course messes clean up, but that took time. With two young boys to corral at the time, my window of opportunity to make Sweet Potato Biscuits had expired. As reality would have it, our family would not eat Sweet Potato Biscuits that Thanksgiving.
Would you believe I didn't retry this recipe for a decade? But when I did, I thought to myself Why didn't I make these sooner? These Sweet Potato Biscuits are delicious! And Kitchen Aid makes making Homemade Honey Butter so fast and easy.
So there you go. Now you know the back story to the explosive Sweet Potato Biscuits.
My Cheats:
I used unbleached all-purpose flour.
I didn't sift the flour.
I used a Kitchen Aid to mix my biscuits.
I used butter only (no shortening, replacing 2/3 C shortening with 2/3 C butter).
I skipped the kneading step and turned my biscuit dough directly onto the baking pan. I scored it with a knife, making square biscuits on the baking sheet before baking.
Gluten-free option: sub gluten-free flour for gluten-full flour. I've tried this. The biscuits still taste pretty good, but the texture is different. The biscuits do not rise quite like gluten-full biscuits. I would still make them again. And really--any biscuit slathered with honey butter tastes delicious, doesn't it?
Make Ahead Tips:
Bake the sweet potato one day before you plan to make the biscuits. Keep it at room temperature.
Prep the dry and wet mixtures several hours in advance, but wait to combine until assembling full recipe.
Homemade Honey Butter can be prepped several days in advance of serving.
Looking for another recipe that uses sweet potatoes?
