Now that we’ve gotten the hard stuff out of the way, let’s talk biscuits. My family’s Thanksgiving table doesn’t usually include them — we usually go the garlic bread route. But biscuits are so fluffy! And soft! And buttery! So so buttery! (I love them so much that I’ll occasionally walk into a KFC for the sole purpose of buying a biscuit. And KFC’s aren’t even that good!)
These sweet potato biscuits kill two birds with one stone: they satisfy my biscuit needs while also checking off the requisite sweet potato box on your Thanksgiving menu checklist. For me, sweet potatoes pose a weird conundrum. Because my sister loves mashed potatoes so dearly, we always have them at our table, regardless of how delicious this sweet potato mash is. And since I hate overloading the already saccharine carb with more sugar (unless we’re talking dessert obvi), marshmallow-topped casseroles are out of the question. And among all of the roasted vegetables and other sides, it’s easy for the humble sweet potato to get lost.
But not in these biscuits, baby! The creamy flesh of a baked (or in my case, microwaved) potato gets folded into a buttery, barely sweet dough, then baked until golden. The recipes calls on an old trick I once used to make shortbread: grating the butter, instead of the more traditional cutting it into the dough with either a pastry cutter or knives. Grating the butter creates small pockets of butter throughout the dough, ideal for a pillowy soft biscuit.
I whipped up a quick batch of chipotle-honey butter, my absolute favorite compound butter flavor. I’ve almost exclusively eaten it on grilled corn / cornbread, but it’s equally delicious here — the slightly smoky heat is a nice foil for the barely sweet biscuit. But the biscuits are equally good topped with gravy or cranberry sauce, or any other Thanksgiving-related condiment.
Sweet Potato Biscuits with Chipotle-Honey Butter
Adapted (barely) from Chow
Makes 15 1-1/2-inch biscuits
To make ahead: Make the dough, form the biscuit rounds, place them on a baking sheet and then place the sheet in the freezer for 1 hour. Once the biscuits are frozen solid, transfer them to a freezer bag and keep up to 1 month. You can bake the frozen biscuits directly from the freezer — just add a few minutes to your baking time.
For the biscuits:
– 2 cups all-purpose flour
– 1 tablespoon baking powder
– 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
– 1/2 teaspoon fine salt
– 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
– 3/4 cup whole milk + more for topping the biscuits
– 1 cup baked, mashed sweet potato (about 1 medium potato)*
– 8 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 stick), frozen
1) Heat the oven to 400F and line a baking sheet with tin foil.
2) Combine the flour, baking powder, sugar, salt and baking soda in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, stir together the milk and sweet potato until well combined.
3) Grate the frozen butter through the large holes of a box grater. Toss with the flour mixture until the butter is coated. Add the milk mixture and mix lightly (hands work well here!) until you form a shaggy dough.
4) Turn out the mixture onto a floured surface and knead it until it just comes together — the dough will be sticky and will not be smooth. Use the heel of your hand to shape the dough into circle that is one inch thick. Use a biscuit cutter or something similar (I used a Solo cup) to cut the dough into rounds. Gather the leftover dough and reroll into a one-inch-thick circle and cut more rounds.
5) Place the biscuits on the baking sheet and brush the tops with the milk. Bake for 11-13 minutes, until the biscuits are puffed up and golden, rotating the sheets halfway through.
*Using a paring knife, pierce the sweet potato all over. Then you can either bake it at 400F for 45 minutes, or drape a paper towel over it and microwave for 5 minutes at a time.
For the chipotle-honey butter:
– 1 stick unsalted butter, softened
– 1 chipotle in adobo, chopped finely + 2 teaspoons adobo sauce
– 2 teaspoons honey
– 1/4 teaspoon salt
1) Stir all of the ingredients together. Refrigerate until ready to use, then serve at room temperature (you may need to stir the butter together just before serving).
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