These are not your grandmother's biscuits and gravy, unless your grandmother made sweet potato biscuits with cracked black pepper, topped with maple sausage gravy. Mine didn't. These are not coffee shop biscuits either with dried out biscuits topped with wallpaper paste. You know who you are.
This idea came to me this morning while standing in front of the pantry looking for something to make for breakfast. Our spring tease ended last night with rain and cold weather so when I returned from feeding the animals I wanted a nice, hot breakfast. A can of sweet potatoes got my imagination going. A half hour later I was eating a hot sweet potato biscuit, smothered in maple sausage gravy. I was really good and just what I was looking for this chilly morning. Here's the recipe.
Equipment
- Parchment paper
- Baking tray
- Biscuit cutter
- Medium bowl
Ingredients
For the biscuits:
- ½ cup sweet potato purée
- ¼ cup plus 2 TBS buttermilk
- 1 cup plus 2 TBS all-purpose flour
- 1 TBS light brown sugar
- 1 ¼ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- ½ teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
- ½ stick cold butter grated on the large side of box grater
For the gravy:
- Four sausage links casings removed and crumbled
- 2 TBS butter
- 2 TBS flour
- 2 TBS maple syrup
- 1 TBS freshly ground black pepper
- ¾ cups whole milk
- 2 TBS heavy cream
- Salt to taste
- Chopped chives for garnish
Instructions
For the biscuits:
- Preheat oven to 450°.
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- To make the sweet potato purée, pulse cooked or canned sweet potato in a food processor until smooth. I used canned sweet potato and it worked well.
- In a small bowl, whisk the sweet potato purée with the buttermilk. If you don't have buttermilk, use regular milk, subtracting 1 TBS, and adding 1 TBS white vinegar in its place. Let it sit on the counter for a few minutes before using.
- Meanwhile, in a medium bowl whisk the flour with the brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and pepper. Sprinkle the grated butter over the dry ingredients.
- Using a pastry blender cut the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles very coarse crumbs, with some of the butter about the size of peas. Stir in the sweet potato mixture until a soft dough forms. Do not overwork the dough.
- Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface and pat it into a 1-inch-thick round. Using a 2-inch biscuit cutter, cut out as many biscuits as you can. I got six. Carefully press the scraps together and cut out more biscuits.
- Arrange the biscuits on the prepared baking sheet and bake for about 14 minutes, until golden brown. Brush with the melted butter and serve warm.
For the gravy:
- Crumble four sausage links (remove from casing) in a hot pan over medium heat, breaking into small pieces. Cook until golden brown.
- Pour off any grease, retaining the browned bits on the bottom of the pan. Add 2 tablespoons of butter to the pan and stir until melted.
- Sprinkle in 2 TBS flour and cook, stirring constantly for one minute, being careful not to brown the flour. Add the maple syrup and black pepper.
- Slowly pour ¾ cups whole milk into the pan stirring constantly as the gravy thickens. Add two tablespoons heavy cream to the thickened gravy and stir to mix well.
- Taste the gravy and add salt and more pepper to taste. The amount of salt needed will depend on the salt in the sausage and butter. You might not need any additional salt.
- Remove the gravy from the heat and sprinkle in a few chopped chives or scallions. Serve piping hot over warm buttered biscuits.
Nutrition
Here are my recommendations for other Unique Sweet Potato Recipes!
Charlie says
That looks and sounds amazing! I love biscuits and gravy. I hope I can make these soon. :o)
Cheryl says
I ADORE biscuits and gravy. Until recently I never knew that you could put things like sweet potatoes, potatoes or squash in bread and make it SUPER YUM! This looks so scrumptious I wish my computer had taste-o-vision! Thanks so much for sharing on The Yuck Stops Here this week! Hope to see you back next week, we’ll be starting the party on Tuesday evening at 6pm ET instead of Monday from now on! HUGS