Sweet Potato Biscuits
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Perfectly fluffy with just the right touch of sweetness, these buttery sweet potato biscuits from Paula Deen are an instant favorite at any table.
A few years back, when I was up to my elbows in turkey and stuffing on Thanksgiving day, I realized I had forgotten to buy bread to serve with our dinner. It was way too late to send my husband to the store, so as soon as my sister walked through the door, I handed her a stack of cookbooks and said, “Quick, find an easy biscuit recipe!” Wisely, she settled on these fluffy sweet potato biscuits adapted from Paula Deen’s Southern Cooking Bible. They were an absolute hit—so much so, my family begged me to make them again for breakfast the next day. And for a special treat, try them with the optional honey butter—it’s a heavenly match!
“Man, these were sooooo good! I make biscuits/scones all the time but the sweet potato and honey butter combo were out of this world!!”
What You’ll Need To Make Sweet Potato Biscuits
- Mashed sweet potatoes – Add natural sweetness and moisture to the biscuits, giving them a tender, soft texture. See recipe note for quick instructions to make mashed sweet potatoes; you can also use leftover peeled baked sweet potatoes.
- Whole milk – Helps create a light, fluffy dough while adding richness.
- All-purpose flour – Provides the structure for the biscuits.
- Cornstarch – Contributes to a tender, delicate crumb by softening the flour’s protein.
- Sugar – Adds a touch of sweetness to balance the savory flavors.
- Baking powder – The leavening agent that gives the biscuits their light, airy rise.
- Salt – Enhances the flavors and balances the sweetness.
- Cold unsalted butter – The key to flaky, tender biscuits; cold butter creates layers as it melts in the oven.
- Jump to the printable recipe for precise measurements
Step-By-Step Instructions
You’ll need 1 cup of mashed sweet potatoes for this recipe. To make them, peel a medium sweet potato and chop it into cubes. Bring a medium pot of water to a boil. Add the sweet potato and cook until very tender, 13 to 15 minutes.
Drain.
Then mash with a fork.
Preheat the oven to 425°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. In a large bowl, whisk together the mashed sweet potatoes and milk. Set aside.
In the bowl of a food processor fitted with the metal blade, combine the flour, corn starch, sugar, baking powder and salt; process for a few seconds to mix.
Add the chunks of cold butter.
Pulse a few times until the mixture resembles coarse meal with some pea-size chunks of butter within. (Alternatively, this can be done by hand using a pastry cutter or your fingers.)
Transfer the flour mixture to the bowl with the sweet potato mixture.
Fold until the mixture is just moistened and holds together; do not overwork the dough.
Sprinkle a small handful of flour on a clean work surface, and turn the dough out onto the surface.
Knead lightly 3 or 4 times with the palm of your hand until the mixture comes together into a smooth ball.
Pat the dough into a rectangle about ¾ inch thick.
Using a sharp knife, cut the dough into thirds.
Stack the pieces on top of one another.
Pat out into a rectangle about ¾ in thick again, flouring the surface lightly as needed to prevent the dough from sticking. Cut the dough into thirds again, and stack the pieces on top of one another. Pat into a rectangle with a final thickness of about ¾ inch.
Dust the blade of a sharp knife with flour and cut the dough into twelve even squares (they will seem small). Transfer the squares to the prepared baking sheet.
Bake for 13 to 15 minutes, until the biscuits are lightly golden on top and golden on the bottom.
The biscuits are best served warm out of the oven (though a few minutes in the oven will revive slightly older biscuits).
“Great easy recipe and so tasty! Love that touch of sweetness and the honey butter is a must!”
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Sweet Potato Biscuits
Perfectly fluffy with just the right touch of sweetness, these buttery sweet potato biscuits from Paula Deen are an instant favorite at any table.
Ingredients
For the Biscuits
- 1 cup mashed sweet potatoes (from 1 medium sweet potato; see note)
- ½ cup whole milk, plus 2 more tablespoons as needed
- 1⅔ cups all-purpose flour, spooned into measuring cup and leveled-off with back edge of knife
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- 2½ tablespoons sugar
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 stick (½ cup) cold unsalted butter, cut into small chunks
For the Honey Butter (Optional)
- 1 stick (½ cup) unsalted butter, softened
- 2 tablespoons honey
- ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
Instructions
For the Biscuits
- Preheat the oven to 425°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the mashed sweet potatoes and ½ cup milk. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a food processor fitted with the metal blade, combine the flour, corn starch, sugar, baking powder and salt; process for a few seconds to mix. Add the chunks of cold butter, then pulse a few times until the mixture resembles coarse meal with some pea-size chunks of butter within. (Alternatively, this can be done by hand using a pastry cutter or your fingers.)
- Transfer the flour mixture to the bowl with the sweet potato mixture. Using a rubber spatula, fold until the mixture is just moistened and holds together, adding up to 2 more tablespoons of milk if needed; do not overwork the dough.
- Sprinkle a small handful of flour on a clean work surface. Turn the dough out onto the surface and knead lightly 3 or 4 times with the palm of your hand until the mixture comes together into a smooth ball. Pat the dough into a rectangle about ¾ inch thick. Using a sharp knife, cut the dough into thirds. Stack the pieces on top of one another and pat out into a rectangle about ¾ in thick again, flouring the surface lightly as needed to prevent the dough from sticking. Cut the dough into thirds again, and stack the pieces on top of one another. Pat into another rectangle with a final thickness of about ¾ inch. Dust the blade of a sharp knife with flour and cut the dough into twelve even squares (they will seem small). Transfer the squares to the prepared baking sheet and bake for 13 to 15 minutes, until the biscuits are lightly golden on top and golden on the bottom. The biscuits are best served warm out of the oven (though a few minutes in the oven will revive slightly older biscuits).
For the Optional Honey Butter
- In a small bowl, beat together the butter, honey and cinnamon. Serve at room temperature.
- Freezer-Friendly Instructions: The biscuits can be baked and then frozen in an airtight container or sealable plastic bag for up to 3 months. To reheat, wrap them in aluminum foil and warm in a 350°F oven until hot.
- Note: To prepare mashed sweet potatoes, peel one sweet potato and chop into cubes. Bring a medium pot of water to a boil. Add the sweet potato and cook until very tender, 13 to 15 minutes. Drain and mash with a fork.
Nutrition Information
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- Serving size: 1 biscuit
- Calories: 157
- Fat: 7 g
- Saturated fat: 5 g
- Carbohydrates: 20 g
- Sugar: 4 g
- Fiber: 1 g
- Protein: 3 g
- Sodium: 125 mg
- Cholesterol: 19 mg
This website is written and produced for informational purposes only. I am not a certified nutritionist and the nutritional data on this site has not been evaluated or approved by a nutritionist or the Food and Drug Administration. Nutritional information is offered as a courtesy and should not be construed as a guarantee. The data is calculated through an online nutritional calculator, Edamam.com. Although I do my best to provide accurate nutritional information, these figures should be considered estimates only. Varying factors such as product types or brands purchased, natural fluctuations in fresh produce, and the way ingredients are processed change the effective nutritional information in any given recipe. Furthermore, different online calculators provide different results depending on their own nutrition fact sources and algorithms. To obtain the most accurate nutritional information in a given recipe, you should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe, using your preferred nutrition calculator.
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Last night I made a batch of these, apart from using avocado in place of butter and substituting half whole wheat flour for regular all purpose, I also halved the sugar. They turned out fine only the sweet potato didn’t come through, and although they weren’t bad (whole wheat flour gave great texture), they did taste a tad too salty for my palate. Perhaps I could have increased the sweet potato, cut back on the milk/salt. Some raisons would have been an improvement. Could you not have incorporated some of the butter ingredients in the biscuits?
Hi Mike, Your version sounds much healthier than mine, but I’m afraid that’s why they didn’t turn out perfectly. Unfortunately, butter is a necessary ingredient in biscuits 🙂
I finally tried this recipe this morning. It was a hit with me and my friends for Sunday brunch. Thank you for sharing!
Yummmmmmmmmmmmm! Mmmmmmmmm!
Loved this recipe as is. It was a huge hit at my dinner party. Served it with turkey chili and the honey butter.
I just made these two days ago for the second time. The first time they were good, but this time they were light, fluffy and DELICIOUS. The first time I didn’t use the food processor and this time I did and the texture was spot on. Also, I didn’t place dough on a surface and use cookie cutter. Instead, I just placed some dough mounds on the pan and lightly pushed them down to shape. Seemed to work because they didn’t last long!!
These are wonderful – foolproof no matter what the size! I had enough of the butter (which is ESSENTIAL) for two yields of these biscuits.
Yummy! These were great right out of the oven but unfortunately got a bit soggy on the way to my friend’s dinner party. They probably would have been fine if I had popped them back in the oven to re-warm them.
I’ve made these twice now, the first time with whole milk and the second time with skim milk, and both turned out great! I’m planning on making these for Thanksgiving for both sets of families!
A strange question. What do Jewish people make for the Thanksgiving feast? I know what everyone else makes, more or less.
Hi Judy, It depends but I think most Jewish families make a traditional Thanksgiving feast. Of course, if they keep kosher they adapt the recipes accordingly.
We all LOVED the flavor of these biscuits and the honey butter was amazing! However, I am always cooking for a crowd….I planned to double the recipe but had enough sweet potato to triple the recipe, so I tripled the entire recipe. I’m not sure if that’s what caused my problem…..but the dough was unbelievable sticky. I kept adding flour, but it didn’t help. I ended up dropping the biscuits instead of rolling, but the result was dense thick biscuits – not the light and flaky ones I hoped for. The other thing I changed was that I froze them before baking, as another reader said she had done. I then put the raw biscuits on the counter to come to room temperature before baking and I’m wondering if that did something to the baking powder? Perhaps I should have gone straight from freezer to oven? Any thoughts on where I went wrong? I’d like to try them again….but ten biscuits will never be enough for my crowd! Thanks for your help – the recipes on your web site are always a hit!
Hi Heidi! I’m glad you all loved the flavor of the biscuits but so sorry you had trouble with the dough. I think your intuition is right that the problem was caused by tripling the recipe. Somehow baked goods never turn out right if you more than double the recipe. Especially with this recipe because there’s some variation in the water content of the sweet potatoes, and when you multiply that by three, there’s just too much room for error. I’d try making the recipe as it is written once, so you get a feel for what the dough and finished biscuit should be like — then double the recipe after that. Also, be sure not to add to much milk at the beginning, which would force you to increase the flour. I hope that helps, and please come back and let me know how they come out if you try them again.
We tried making these by following the exact recipe, but our “dough” was extremely runny and would not be classified as a dough. Not sure what went wrong.
Hi Taylor, I’m sorry you had a problem with the dough! Did you try adding more flour to it to get it to a workable consistency?
Same thing happened to me… Is there too much milk in this recipe? Maybe some sweet potatoes have more natural liquid than others?
P.S. I did add about 1/3 cup more flour and the dough stiffened up enough to handle. Just took the biscuits out of the oven – they turned out great – rose well, flaky (lots of layers), soft. Next time I’ll add more flour from the start. Upgraded my rating!