Sweet Potato Biscuits and Cinnamon Honey Butter

This year I decided to add a new twist to our Thanksgiving dinner: sweet potato biscuits. These tasty morsels add some holiday flair to the table. I adapted this recipe from MarthaStewart.com. I added more flavors and love the way sweet potato, orange and holiday spices punch up a traditional biscuit. Also, my version uses all white whole wheat flour, and the biscuits are still light and delicious.

Homemade Cinnamon Honey Butter is the perfect topping to send these biscuits over the top. I like to serve the butter in a cute little butter dish with a lid.

Sweet potato biscuits are a great accompaniment to a traditional thanksgiving meal, but I am most excited about using these biscuits to make leftover turkey and cranberry sandwiches the next day. Making my ultimate turkey sandwich will be a breeze because the biscuits can be made ahead the following way: Make the dough and shape the biscuits ahead of time. Freeze the dough circles in the baking pan, and just pop them in the oven right before serving time.

Sweet potato biscuits taste great with Herbal Pumpkin Spice Rooibos tea. It's such a festive combination with an amazing aroma.

I found the tea at Trader Joe's, or there are similar ones such as Pumpkin Spice Herb Tea by Zhena's Gypsy Tea or a black tea variety by Bigelow called Pumpkin Spice Tea.

Now, let's get baking. Here's what the biscuit-making process looks like:

As soon as my biscuits came out of the oven, I rushed them over to the Food Bloggers Los Angeles early Thanksgiving potluck.

I plated them on special Fall Parchment Leaves. I made the biscuits in a mini size because I knew there would be so much incredible food. Check out the links at the bottom of the post for Thanksgiving recipes from my fellow food bloggers.

Recipe for Sweet Potato Biscuits
Adapted slightly from Martha Stewart
Makes about 25 mini biscuits or 8 large biscuits.
The recipe can be doubled.

Ingredients:
1 medium-sized sweet potato. I used a garnet yam, which is dark orange on the inside and purplish brown on the outside. (or ¾ cup leftover sweet potato purée)
1-¾ cups white whole wheat flour, plus a sprinkle for the cutting surface.
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2-½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon pumpkin pie spice*
7 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, divided (just under 1 cube of butter)
⅓ cup low fat buttermilk
½ teaspoon orange zest
1 tablespoon orange juice (I juiced an orange after I zested it.)

Ingredient Notes:
* Pumpkin pie spice is equivalent to ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon plus ⅛ teaspoon ground allspice plus ⅛ teaspoon ground nutmeg.
If using leftover sweet potato purée, you can omit the sugar, orange and spices if your purée is already sweetened and flavored.

Directions:
1. Baking the sweet potato:
Put an oven rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 400 degrees F. Rinse one sweet potato, and pierce several times with a fork. Bake in the oven with a piece of aluminum foil underneath to catch drips. Cook for 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until soft. Turn the oven to 425 degrees F, and leave the oven on for the biscuits. When the potato is cool enough to handle, cut open, and scoop out the flesh. Mash with a fork, and then measure ¾ cup of mashed sweet potato. Set aside the ¾ cup of sweet potato to cool in a medium-sized bowl.

2. Prepare the pan:
In the mean time, take out an 8 or 9 inch cake pan. Line the bottom with parchment paper. Cut off 1 tablespoon of butter, and butter the sides. Place the remains of the 1 tablespoon of butter in a small microwaveable bowl and melt in the microwave. Set aside.

3. The Dry ingredients and butter:
In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients: the flour, brown sugar, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and pumpkin pie spice. Cut 6 tablespoons of cold butter into the dry ingredients using a pastry blender (or 2 butter knives or your fingers) until the dough looks like coarse meal with the largest pieces no bigger than the size of peas.

4. The Wet ingredients and sweet potato:
Get the medium-sized bowl with the cooled mashed sweet potatoes and add the following wet ingredients: buttermilk, orange juice, and orange zest. Stir to combine.

5. Combine wet and dry ingredients:
Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients. Stir as little as possible until the ingredients combine and the dough almost comes together. Do not over mix or the biscuits will be tough.

6. Shaping the biscuits:
Lightly flour a cutting surface or clean counter. Turn the dough on to the surface and simultaneously pat the dough together and shape into a flat, even disk. If the dough is too sticky, sprinkle in a little more flour. Handle the dough as little as necessary. To make mini biscuits, the dough disk should be ⅝th of an inch high and use a biscuit cutter with a 1-½ inch diameter (as seen in my photos). To make sandwich biscuits, the disk should be 1 inch high and use a biscuit cutter with a 2-¾ inch diameter. Cut out the circles as close together as possible. Re-pat the dough scraps into a new disk one time only, and cut out more dough circles.

7. In the pan:
Place the dough circles in the prepared pan. Place the circles so that they almost touch. The biscuits don't expand much. Also, they rise a little bit less than regular biscuits. Placing the biscuits close together aids rising. Take the melted butter, and brush the tops of the uncooked biscuits.

8. Freeze or bake:
At this point the biscuits can be frozen for later use or can be baked. Bake at 425 degrees F until slightly golden brown on the top and bottom. Mini biscuits bake for 13-15 minutes. The large biscuits bake for 25 to 30 minutes. Add a few additional minutes to the baking time if the dough was frozen. Serve immediately.

Recipe for Cinnamon Honey Butter
Adapted slightly from Like Mother Like Daughters blog

Ingredients:
4 tablespoons softened unsalted butter (½ cube)
1-½ tablespoons honey
⅛ teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions:
Place all the ingredients in a small bowl and stir to combine well.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. Thank you for supporting my blog.