A Very Sweet (Potato) Thanksgiving
I know, Thanksgiving has been over for, well, over a month. But like always, after Thanksgiving, the days swept buy in a blur of color and festivities as we prepared for even more holiday celebrations. But I promise, this recipe is worth the wait, and will taste great any time of the year.I finally redeemed myself from a very unfortunate desert concoction last year during passover. Since then I have apparently been dubbed the dessert maker for family celebrations and functions. This is fine with me as I love trying to new dessert recipes, but can't always justify making a batch of cookies or brownies or fudge every day when I live with just myself. There is no amount of running in the world that could counterbalance all of those calories - I like decadent things. Plus, I think, the batter is always the best part, and the person doing the prepping and baking is usually the only one who gets the luxury of licking those spoons.
So, when Thanksgiving came around this year and I asked what I should bring, I was given the default answer. Dessert. Woo. But I wasn't feeling it this year. Thanksgiving in our house has the typical staple dessert of pumpkin pie with ice cream, and my parents had already bought two pies and four tubs of ice cream for our large family dinner of a whopping 8 people. I didn't want to overdo it. And if I was to make another dessert, is was going to have to be amazing enough to make the pie slices a bit smaller to leave room for the extra dessert making the Thanksgiving table debut.
As usual, I began my hunt on Pinterest trying to find the perfect treat. I clicked link after link and after getting totally detoured, I finally found it. I knew what I would make. Sweet potato biscuits. Were they a dessert? Were they an appetizer? I wasn't sure, but I knew they would be different enough to get people to try them and I could put them out with the main meal before people got too full to enjoy them.
I wanted the biscuits to be warm and moist and melt in your mouth when my family took a bite of them with their meal. The sweet potato was ready and I had read the recipe about five times. I made sure I had all of the ingredients and planned the timing. I was ready to go.
Thanksgiving morning came quickly and I got to work. I measured out each ingredient and did as the recipe instructed. Measuring, pouring, stirring, kneading. I was feeling good. The ingredients formed together and looked like dough. I wrapped up the dough, grabbed the marshmallows and headed to my parents house to meet Brenden for the final prep of the biscuits. He helped me to roll out the dough and add the marshmallows. We decided to make half of the dough with the marshmallows and half without, so they would not be instantly classified as a dessert. I was excited and nervous as we popped them in the oven.
They were smelling and looking good. With a tip from my cousin, I smothered the bisciuts with some butter as they came out of the oven to help keep them moist until it was time to try them. I plated them and then just waited in anticipation as the rest of the meal was set on the table.
It was the moment of truth. Time to taste test. I grabbed a biscuit oozing with marshmallow, brought it to my mouth, hesitated, and then, took a bite. To my excitement I was really good. I took another bite and another. The biscuit was just about perfect, if I say so myself - not too sweet even with the marshmallows and not too heavy or dense. I love the fact that these biscuits got a majority of their sweetness from the potato. It allowed all of the other flavors from the spices to really shine and compliment each other with a natural sweetness without being overwhelmed by heavy amounts of added sugar.
All in all, I could use a bit of practice with creating my biscuit layers, but they were defined enough that you still got a bit of that flakiness from each one. Next time I make these I would knead the marshmallows right into the dough to help with that factor, as well as to prevent over kneading and rolling of the dough.
Now, I knew I liked the biscuits, with my mental notes of how to make them even better, but did anyone else agree. I began to look around and filled with joy as I noticed everyone else nibbling away on a biscuit as well. Some enjoyed the marshmallow filled biscuits and others noshed on the plain sweet potato biscuits. Whichever biscuit my family member tried, they seemed to have come to the same consensus as me (and that is saying a lot when almost half of the table comes from the restaurant/food biz). Another successful dish for another wonderful holiday, filled with family and friends.
Recipe adapted from smittenkitchen.com, Sweet Potato and Marshmallow Biscuits
Ingredients- 1lb sweet potatoes (3/4 cup cooked and mashed)
- 1/3 cup buttermilk
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 Tbsp baking powder
- 3 Tbsp granulated sugar
- 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp ground ginger
- 1/8 tsp ground cloves
- 1/2 tsp table salt
- 5 Tbsp unsalted butter, cold and cut into small pieces
- 1 cup miniature marshmallows (optional)
- The day before or a couple of hours in advance: Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Place the sweet potato on a baking tray and bake until soft, about 45 minutes.
- Remove from oven and let the potato cool in the skin.
- Peel the skin from the potato once cooled completely and place the potato flesh in a medium bowl.
- Mash the potato flesh until very smooth and measure out 3/4 cup of mashed sweet potato and set aside for the biscuits (note: the excess sweet potato will not be used, enjoy it on is own or save to make a second batch of biscuits).
- Whisk the 3/4 cup sweet potato puree with the buttermilk until smoothly combined. Keep nearby.
- In a large bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, and salt together.
- Work the butter into the flour mixture with your fingers until it resembles a coarse meal.
- Add the sweet potato mixture to the flour mixture, stirring and breaking it up until the mixture is in soft, big chunks.
- Begin to knead as it forms into a dough and one large mass, using as few motions as possible.
- If using marshmallows, sprinkle them in as and knead them into the dough. If not using marshmallows, simply skip this step.
- Once again, preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Once everything is combined roll out the dough on a floured counter until it reaches about an inch of thickness.
- Using a 2 inch circular cutter, covered in flour, form biscuits by placing the cutter straight down into the dough and removing (note: do not twist during this process or they layers/flakiness of the biscuits will be compromised).
- Re-roll excess dough and repeat step 14 until the dough has run out.
- Place the biscuits on a baking sheet coated with baking spray.
- Bake for 13-15 minutes, until biscuits have puffed up and are golden on top.
- Remove from oven, cool on rack, and enjoy!
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