Sweet Potato Biscuits

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was selected by Erin of Prudence Pennywise. She selected Sweet Potato Biscuits, which were the perfect accompaniment to soup that I made this week for dinner. It’s just been rainy here in the Seattle area and it’s the perfect weather for soups and stews. I made these while the soup was simmering away on the stove.

These are a quick bread, a baking powder biscuit with sweet potato puree added. I’ve said a couple of times that I don’t like pumpkin, but I like sweet potatoes a lot. We usually make sweet potato pie instead of pumpkin pie. Plus I love the spices usually associated with pumpkin and sweet potato, so I was looking forward to this recipe.

This recipe calls for canned sweet potatoes in syrup. Now, I know that some people have only had sweet potatoes in a casserole with mini marshmallows, or have only had candied sweet potatoes. I guess I grew up in an unusual household because I had only ever had baked sweet potatoes. Just wrap them in foil and stick them in the oven. Super easy and they are sweet on their own so there was no need to add sugary accompaniments. I went to a holiday banquet and for the first time had candied sweet potatoes and they were horrible! Needless to say, I am not a fan of overly sweetened sweet potatoes.

These biscuits have a good sweet potato flavor, but they aren’t too sweet. I used canned sweet potato puree rather than the potatoes in syrup. This was easier as I didn’t have to mash the potatoes. The recipe warns that you should use a very light hand in mixing everything together into dough, but it’s hard to be gentle and get everything mixed. My dough was over handled a bit, since my biscuits didn’t rise as much as I would have hoped. They were still flaky and soft in the middle. I really liked them and I will probably make them for Thanksgiving. I think they will be perfect for the holidays.

Recipe from Baking from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, page 26.