Oh my goodness.
Often I'll make a recipe a few times before I decide to share it, especially if it is one I came up with and need to test. But these biscuits...
The second half-dozen haven't even come out of the oven yet, I've already eaten 3 of them, and I couldn't wait to share the recipe with you. My husband Matthew who grew up in rural Appalachia and knows his way around a biscuit raved about these, despite the fact they are gluten free!
I originally wanted to make gluten free sweet potato biscuits because there is a small coffee shop here in Nashville that introduced them to me, and they are to die for. The coffee shop, which is managed by a friend of ours, is called The Well, which has an amazing mission of bringing clean water to the communities across the globe. (p.s. now is a great time to be buying gift cards to support your favorite local restaurants, or you can just donate directly.) And aside from their awesome mission, their Honey Bee breakfast sandwich-- honey, local sausage, spinach, and egg on a sweet potato biscuit-- is probably my favorite breakfast of all time. This recipe isn't quite as good as theirs, but it sure does come close. It also only takes about 20 minutes to make (+ baking time) and uses ingredients you probably already have in your pantry (this time, unlike last time, I'm actually serious). It's been on my "to-bake" list for some time, because I imagined for some reason that they would be time consuming and laborious to make. But if you throw a sweet potato in the oven and forget about it for a little while (you don't even have to peel it), then throwing together these biscuits is so easy I'm embarrassed I hadn't made them sooner.
The not-so-secret secret of making great biscuits is fat. We've talked about fat before, and why it's not the demon that it was once made out to be, but it's a good reminder that even butter can be part of a healthy diet. When the butter in our dough melts in the oven, the result is small air pockets. These air pockets are then used by the chemical leaveners, like baking soda and baking powder, that release their gases and create lift in the baked good. If we had instead melted the butter, like you would for a brownie, the butter would be evenly spread throughout the dough, making tiny air pockets that don't provide much room for gas, resulting in a thick, dense baked good-- perfect for a brownie, but not so great for a biscuit. This is one reason you want to be careful not to handle the dough too much, and to start with chilled ingredients. If you melt the butter before it reaches the oven with your hands, by overmixing, or by letting the dough sit out too long, you won't get a flaky, light biscuit.
Interestingly, this recipe calls for both baking powder and baking soda. The reason is in the different ways these two basic compounds react to acid (brief chemistry interlude: acid + base = neutralized mixture + gas). The baking powder has a powdered form of acid mixed in already, so it doesn't require you to add any other acid to the recipe-- the acidic and basic components of baking powder are perfectly balanced. In other words, baking powder creates lift without making your dough taster more acidic. Baking soda, on the other hand, is only a basic compound. It neutralizes any acid you add to the dough, which is why it's important to use buttermilk or milk + acid instead of just plain milk in this recipe. In other words, baking soda adds lift and makes the pH of your dough more basic. If you add just enough baking soda to neutralize the acid in the recipe, it may not provide enough lift on its own, so extra baking powder can help. (And if you were to add too much baking soda, the baked good might taste pretty gross.)
The result is a biscuit that is light and flaky, without an acidic or basic taste that would get in the way of the slight buttery sweetness. I love adding ground cloves to anything with sweet potato or pumpkin in it, so feel free to add it here too if you have some! And if you want to replicate the Honey Bee, try drizzling the biscuits with a little honey and adding some egg, spinach, and sausage. I found that some of these biscuits didn't quite rise enough to split in half, so you may need to use two for a sandwich.
Gluten Free Sweet Potato Biscuits
Makes 12 biscuits
Ingredients
1 3/4 cup gluten free flour (I used a mix of Trader Joe's and this, but if you're not gf and only have gluten-full all purpose flour, feel free to use that)
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
6 tablespoons chilled butter, cut into pieces
3/4 cup mashed sweet potato*, chilled (about 1 medium sweet potato)
1/2 cup buttermilk, or, if you're desperate like I was, 1/2 cup milk + 1/2 tablespoon vinegar or lemon juice (though the original recipe does not recommend this)
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves, optional
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon, optional
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees fahrenheit. Add first 5 ingredients to a bowl (through butter) and mix with your hands until it resembles a crumbly coarse meal with some larger chunks of butter remaining. You want to be careful not to work the mixture too much because the heat from your hands will melt the butter and we won't get those flaky layers that make biscuits so good.
2. In another bowl, mix sweet potato, milk, and remaining spices. Add to the flour mixture, and stir until just barely combined.
3. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and very lightly knead the dough until it forms a ball. At this step, I needed to add some more flour because I used slightly more than 3/4 cup sweet potato, so feel free to add more if the dough needs it.
4. Roll out dough to about 1/2 inch thick. Using a biscuit cutter (but who has those?), a round cookie cutter, or a mason jar ring, cut out circles in the dough and place each on a buttered baking sheet or preferably one lined with parchment, a silicone mat. If using a large mason jar ring, you should get 12 biscuits.
5. Bake for about 15 minutes, until the bottoms are lightly browned. Enjoy!
*There are a few really easy ways to get mashed sweet potato. The first is to microwave one, but I've always found that microwaving will get the right texture but not the right flavor. Baking the sweet potato until the middle is soft is the way to go, because this method begins to caramelize some of the sugars in the sweet potato to bring out the sweetness. I used a toaster oven for this recipe, so I didn't have to turn my actual oven on. Just roast the plain, washed, skin-on sweet potato on a baking sheet at 375 degrees for about 30-45 minutes until soft. Let cool completely.
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