Sweet potato biscuits, revised recipe. I goofed!

My deepest apologies to my readers and to Hope Dougherty for my mistake yesterday, I posted just half the recipe! I am so sorry. So here it is in its entirety. And remember, check out Hope’s books Irish Encounter and Rescued Hearts on Amazon. Isn’t there a reader Christmas list who would love one or both of these books?

In Rescued Hearts, Gigi makes sweet potato biscuits for her grandson, Brett. The following recipe comes from my mother’s head, not a written page, so the amounts are my best guesses. If you want the directions with pictures to help you understand the process, visit my blog https://hopetolerdougherty.com/sweet-potato-biscuits/.

Sweet Potato Biscuits

Ingredients:

1 medium baked, sweet potato (about ¾ cup)

1-2 tablespoons sugar

2 cups self-rising four

4-5 tablespoons butter

3/4 cup buttermilk (may need more—or less)

Directions:

Combine the sweet potato and sugar.

Make a well in the flour and add the butter. Cut the butter into the flour with fingers until part of the flour resembles coarse peas. (You may want to use a pastry blender.) 

Begin adding the buttermilk to the well of butter and flour. (One hand is mixing the dough, and one hand is pouring.) As you add the buttermilk, drag in more flour from the sides of the well. 

Once you’ve incorporated about half of the buttermilk, add the sweet potato mixture to the well. Mix the sweet potato and buttermilk, flour, and butter mixture.

Keep adding the buttermilk and flour until you have a pretty good sized batter. Then add only enough flour to make the dough. Once the batter forms a loose dough, knead it lightly. Too much kneading will result in tough biscuits.

Now. The next step is where my family differs from most biscuit recipes. My cousin who has written several cook books calls how we make biscuits “choking them off.” We don’t roll out the dough and cut with a cookie cutter.

We hold the dough in our hands and pinch off the end to make a biscuit. This way saves steps and some clean-up, too.  Roll the pinched-off bit lightly in the palm of your hands. only a couple of times. Depending on the size you make them, you may have about twenty biscuits.

Place the biscuits on a sheet pan. I use a baking stone. Then following what my grandmother always did, I give each biscuit a nudge with my knuckles before placing the pan in a 450-degree oven. 

Bake for about 15 minutes.

Enjoy these biscuits hot or at room temperature. 

*Readers, I tried to be more specific with this recipe, but making biscuits is kind of an art. You get a feel for what the batter should look like and what the dough should feel like. If the dough is soft but still holding together, I know the biscuits will be good, not tough.

My advice is practice, practice, practice!