As a Southerner, I've eaten a lot of biscuits in my life. Whether homemade or frozen or from-the-can, I don't usually discriminate. Unfortunately the ones I make from scratch never seem to live up to my expectations of the perfect biscuit. But what is the perfect biscuit you ask?
The Cracker Barrel biscuit of course! Yes, I admit that my perfect biscuit comes from a restaurant chain that dots the highways throughout the southern states. The same chain that still sells RC Cola's and Moonpies and lets you play checkers by the fireplace while waiting for your table. Their rocking chairs are pretty swell, too. 'Cause you know we southerners love a little front porch sitting.
But back to the biscuits. They are always perfectly light and fluffy, almost cloud-like in consistency and never dense. Slathered with butter and strawberry jam? It's like they were sent straight from the heavens. I've ruined many a dinner by eating too many of the tempting morsels before my food arrives.
So you can imagine that all my from-scratch biscuits just never really compare. I mean, how can I compete with a little old grandmother who cranks out fresh biscuits all day (at least that's what I imagine. Someone's granny must sit back there and makes those biscuits, keeping years of biscuit-making secrets close to her chest.)
All that has changed, however. Enter the incredible sweet potato biscuit. Sweet potatoes are hands down my favorite vegetable, whether roasted and drizzled with brown sugar or whipped into a casserole and topped with marshmallows. Remind me to thank the thrifty housewife who thought to add them to biscuits.
These will be my go-to biscuits from here on out. They are melt-in-your-mouth tender, and let's not forget their gorgeous orange hue. Almost like little Easter eggs! To top it all off, I slathered them in creamy maple butter to bring out their natural sweetness. Move over, Cracker Barrel. There's a new biscuit in town... 
yields approximately 18 (2-inch) biscuits
For the biscuits
2 cups all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
6 tablespoons chilled butter, cut into cubes
1 cup cooked and mashed sweet potato (approximately 1 large potato)
1/2 cup buttermilk, plus additional as needed
For the maple butter
1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 tablespoons real maple syrup
Preheat oven to 375°
In a large bowl, mix together all-purpose flour, baking powder, and salt. Using a pastry blender (or your fingers if you don't have one) cut the butter into the flour mixture until the butter is a mix of pea-size balls and small crumbs.
In a separate bowl, mix together the mashed sweet potato and buttermilk until well-combined. Fold into the flour mixture, adding more (up to 4 tablespoons) buttermilk if necessary. The dough should form a nice ball, and be just a bit on the sticky side, as opposed to crumbly and dry. Chill the dough for thirty minutes, if desired, although you can bake them off immediately if you would like. I happen to like the way the biscuits look when the dough has chilled (a bit more crackly on top), but the flavor is not affected by this step.
Pat out the dough onto a lightly floured surface to about a 1-inch thickness (do not roll out the dough with a rolling pin). Cut out rounds using a well floured biscuit cutter. Gather the remaining scraps and repeat until all the dough is used. Place the biscuits on a large sheet pan and bake for 15 minutes (or bake in batches).
For the maple butter, mix the room temperature butter and maple syrup until completely combined and smooth. Serve with warm biscuits or refrigerate until needed.
Note: the cooked biscuits will freeze beautifully and can be pulled out at a moments notice. Just bake at 375° until heated through.
Related: Recipe: Sweet Potato Souffle with a Twist
(Images: Nealey Dozier)
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Comments (26)
These look heavenly - adding them to my 'list of things to make' list. Thanks for sharing!
I understand the sweet-on-sweet inclination for sweet potatoes, but don't forget about the glory that is garlic and sweet potatoes. I want to make these with garlic in and on them, to go with a steak or stew.
If you want to master a non-sweet potato biscuit I recommend cream biscuits from gourmet. Using cream instead of buttermilk really transforms them.
Love a good sweet potato biscuit. If you love the sweet spuds, have you tried Sweet Potato Cobbler? http://bit.ly/abUNSW
Oh my god, YUM!
I may serve these instead of rolls on the Thanksgiving table... hmmm
as a biscuit fiend and afficionado, i'm super stoked to try these sweet puppies out! thanks for a great-looking recipe, Nealy.
Hmmmm- they look tasty! Will veganize them next weekend.
Sweet potato biscuits are super good as a sandwich with a small piece of honey ham.
I'm not much of a bread person, and I've never made biscuits before, but these were tasty, moist, and light. I was drawn to the addition of the sweet p, and would certainly make them again.
This recipe looks amazing! I've had a sweet potato sitting on my counter just waiting for something like this. Thanks for sharing!
I made these, they're awesome!! I'm not too mad on the sweet on sweet potatoes so we had these with a roast chicken, green beans and gravy, was one of the nicest dinners! We used leftover biscuits, chicken and gravy to make Hot Chicken Sandwiches for lunch. Yumminess!!
This might be a stupid question but is the butter for the biscuits unsalted or salted?
Oh my! I looove sweet potatoes and cannot wait until the weekend to make these.
P.S. Thanks for the sweet potato cobbler recipe, "The Runaway Spoon." And, "Sally 599," where can I find the recipe for cream biscuits that you mentioned?
So nice to see someone else says "front porch sittin'" I get teased allll the time for that! :p Recipe looks yuumy!
When I was a lil kid, my aunt used to make these and my gosh were they good! She was in her 70's then (in the mid 1970's) and she used to get up early to make these suckers. Sweet potato biscuits, with baked ham in between (from the night before) and grits! OMG! I'm so happy I have her recipe...so I understand the love of the SPB right now! LOL!
Made 'em, and they are a MAJOR crowd pleaser. Thank you!
Is it possible to add a 'print this' function to recipe posts, with a link to a printer-friendly version of the article?
Could you possible substitute pumpkin puree for the sweet potato? Have some canned pumpkin around waiting to be used but no sweet potato...
I use sweet potato flour by Zocalo to make my Gluten Free recipes. This would be easy to convert. Sometimes you just want ...a biscuit! Buttery and naturally sweet!
Being in the kitchen is not one of my favorite past times but, this recipe sounds awesome. I would like to try it but, I don't even have 3' of counter space and no table. How could I convert this recipe to a drop biscuit? Can anyone out there help me? Thanks so much!
I made these and while they were DELICIOUS...they didn't rise too well. They remained about 1 inch thick...maybe rose a little more. I put in the baking powder as specified. Anyone have any ideas?
These are wonderful! I don't think they need butter at all.
Mmmm...I love biscuits so it will be a pleasure to try this recipe!
Super excited to try these- I am always after the elusive perfect biscuit recipe. Maybe these will be "the one"!
A belated comment, but I HAD to report back! I made the dough last night, then wrapped popped them into the freezer unbaked. Baked them this morning for breakfast and they were awesome!! Beautiful texture, and the sweet potato flavor came through just right--esp. with a bit of butter, salt, and whipped honey. (Also ate them with blood orange marmalade--delicious, but obscured the sweet potato taste a bit more.) I subbed about a third of the flour with white whole wheat, and will probably try 1/2 next time. I don't think I will ever go back to plain buttermilk biscuits again--this recipe has inspired me to keep 1-cup portions of mashed sweet potato in the freezer for just this purpose.