Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Sweet Potato Biscuits

When my husband and I first began dating years ago, he frequently took me to his favorite restaurant on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. They served a basket full of sweet potato biscuits with every meal. They were so tender, so moist, with little chunks of sweet potato. He loved them. I wanted to learn to make those biscuits for him, because I loved him.

It wasn't until many years later that we were finally able to settle down. Last summer we tore out the lovely landscaping of rose bushes, azaleas, and enormous hostas in our small townhouse back yard to create a raised bed garden. It took a lot of work between the two of us to create the beds and amend our awful, heavy, red clay soil. Lots of manure, organic compost and topsoil, and a good many blisters as well.

As we were getting a late start to our planting, I had no real plan about what to grow, I just knew I wanted to grow something, and something we liked. The garden eventually included green beans, cucumbers, several varieties of peppers, squash, tomatoes and strawberries. I came across the sweet potato plants accidentally as I was looking for trellises. I didn't really expect them to do well, since the soil still had the clay characteristics.

The sweet potato vines grew happily all over the yard, and the heart-shaped leaves were attractive enough. But what was happening underground? Would there be anything worth harvesting, I wondered all summer long? Finally, last fall, I started to dig, and dig, and dig sweet potatoes. Big ones, small ones, twisted ones, round ones, long skinny ones, and GIANT ones.

All together I have had mashed sweet potatoes; baked sweet potatoes; five sweet potato pies (shared with family and friends); and three batches of sweet potato biscuits. Each batch of biscuits better than the last as I have perfected both my recipe and my technique.

I love these biscuits, and I could eat them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, then again for dessert.

Here is my recipe:
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 stick of chilled butter, cut into small pieces
1 cup cooked, mashed sweet potato
1/2 cup whole milk

Preheat oven to 400 degrees
Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a bowl.
Cut in butter with a pastry blender until mixture is similar in texture to coarse corn meal.
In a small bowl, combine the sweet potato and milk, then add to the flour mixture.
Stir just until moist.
Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead lightly five or six times.
Roll dough to about a 3/4 inch thickness and cut with a two-inch biscuit cutter (I used a small glass).
I gently rolled and patted the scraps into small biscuits.
Bake at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes until lightly browned.

Enjoy!

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