Sweet Potato Biscuits

I don't know that I ever had these at someone's house before having them at a fancy Southern restaurant, so they're not really a South Carolina thing as far as I know. They're super-tasty, though.

Ingredients:
3 c flour
3 heaping t baking powder
1 1/2 t salt
2 t brown sugar
2 heaping T Crisco
4 T unsalted butter cut into cubes (or you could use all butter. Or all Crisco!)
1 1/2 c mashed cooked sweet potato (2 potatoes)
heavy cream as needed; start with 1/3 cup

1. Preheat oven to 450F.
2. Put flour, baking powder, salt and sugar in bowl of a stand mixer (or normal bowl if you're doing it by hand, which I hasten to add is very easy.) Mix dry ingredients together.
3. Add Crisco and butter. Mix with flat paddle attachment till fat is well cut in and mixture looks sandy (or, use two knives or a pastry cutter to do the same.)
4. Add mashed sweet potato and fold it in with a rubber spatula (you're trying to stir less rather than more, and in any case stop before it's fully combined).
5. Add cream plus more cream as needed to make dough. Stir till combined, favoring a less-is-more stirring strategy.
6. Pat out dough into a circle 2 inches thick on a floured board. Cut into biscuits, placing them as close together as possible. (NB if you put all the biscuits that are made from re-rolled scraps on one side you will be able to avoid them and fob these less-tender ones off on unsuspecting husbands or children.)
7. Bake 15 or so minutes. Let them get well-browned, since they are damp.
8. Take two four, and butter them while they're hot.

Comments

[Helen]

As an Australian I have always been fascinated by the concept of "biscuits". Biscuits, here, are what you would call "cookies". I believe your biscuits are something like a scone?

Could you please expand on your last instruction ("cut into biscuits") - how big should a "biscuit" be?

And the "gravy" you have with "biscuits", that's what we call "bechamel", no?

Perhaps we need a cooking Babelfish. But dang I'm keen to try that above recerpe.

[LizardBreath]

Think a little smaller than a scone -- a 2 or 3 inch (5-8 cm?) square or circle. And gravy is, I think, the same thing in the US and Australia -- pan juices from roasted meat or fowl, deglazed with broth, and thickened with flour, roughly. Unless you mean sausage gravy, which is kind of a bechamel sauce with sausage meat in it.

[belle waring]

yes, helen, american biscuits are basically scones. they are usually savory, although these are slightly sweet. you can have them just with butter, or with jam, honey, cane syrup (which is kind of like treacle, I think?) etc. I'm not a big fan of biscuits and gravy, actually, because it makes the biscuits soggy. some people love it. it's usually a cream gravy, so bechamel-esque: broth is the biggest component by volume, it is stirred into the flour which has been cooked in oil with the pan drippings, but then it's finished with milk or cream.

[fantomenos]

Wow, those look yummy! On another tack, the Minor Fall, Major Lift link seems a bit, um, NSFW.

[todd.]

I think biscuits, properly done, are significantly "lighter" or "less dense" than scones. Though perhaps I've had better biscuits than I have scones.

[Nell]

Two inches thick before baking? How tall do they end up being?

[Helen]

Thanks for that, Belle!

[todd.]

Made these for a pot-luck tonight. I thought the sweet potato was a bit subtle at 1.5 cups (which was way less than two potatoes), so next time I may step that up. Otherwise, they were fantastic biscuits. Thanks!