You may remember that a few months ago I passed along a recipe for dinner rolls made with sweet potatoes mixed into the dough. When I made them I found that, despite the heavy nature of mashed sweet potatoes, the rolls came out perfectly light and fluffy.
You can make a sweet-potato biscuit as well, and make it even easier with the use of some well-chosen tools and ingredients. I wouldn't make so-called drop biscuits, which are not rolled and cut into shape, simply because they are unpredictable and you can get burned biscuits if there is a discrepancy in their size. So I'm assuming that we will make rolled biscuits, which are uniform in size and bake evenly among the batch.
To make biscuits, you can use self-rising flour, which could be about the only time that you actually use it. On the package of the King Arthur Flour Company Self-Rising Flour that I have, the label reads "Great for recipes," and I believe them. I'll bet that you could simplify the cookie-making process with it--but remember that you won't use it for bread.
Why not? Because it contains baking powder and baking soda, which are not used in yeast dough. But the proportions of the powder and soda will be ideal for the "short" goods that you are going to bake. I bought my self-rising flour at Sprouts in Tucson, but it is available in most supermarkets here, and in other brands as well.
Another ingredient of interest is cooked mashed sweet potato. I would buy a few and cook them up, mash them, set aside half a cup for the biscuits and then flavor them up as a side dish for dinner. You probably don't want to deal with just one sweet potato.
And while we are on the subject, you could probably used cooked mashed pumpkin in this recipe as well, and if you ever tackle a whole pumpkin for Holiday baking, just portion it out after you remove it from the shell after it has cooked and cooled. Set aside half a cup, freeze the other quantities and there you are. Don't handle the cooked pumpkin until it has cooled, though.
One tool that I always use is the interesting biscuit cutter that comes from King Arthur Flour Company Online, although I am sure it is available elsewhere. It consists of a metal grid that you lay over the top of the rolled biscuit dough and press down, forming interlocking diamond-shaped biscuits. One of them will cost you between ten and fifteen dollars online.
SWEET POTATO BREAKFAST BISCUITS
Ingredients:
1/2 cup cooked mashed sweet potato
1-1/2 cups self-rising flour
1 Tablespoon granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 Tablespoons unsalted butter, cold and cut into pieces
1/2 cup milk
Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.
In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar and salt, and whisk until combined. Using a fork, pastry blender or your hands, add the butter pieces to the flour and mix until coarse little crumbles remain.
Pour in the milk and add the sweet potato, stirring with a spoon until thoroughly combined, but not over mixing. Use your hands if needed to bring the dough together.
Use a 1/4 cup measure to drop the batter onto a nonstick baking sheet, or press the dough on a sheet of parchment paper or cutting board and use a biscuit cutter to shape the dough into rounds.
Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until biscuits are slightly golden and puffy. While the biscuits are baking, prepare your breakfast sandwich ingredients.
To make breakfast biscuit sandwiches, just like at the fast-food restaurants but a whole lot better, split your biscuit horizontally and swipe it with mayonnaise (I have received my Duke's Mayonnaise and I'm loving it). On top of that you can put an egg, bacon, cheese, Canadian bacon or a sausage patty. Or you can put out some toppings and your breakfast audience can build their own. Hey, it could be fun.
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