These Gluten-free Sweet Potato Buttermilk Biscuits are just the thing for dunking into soup when the weather turns cool!
At our house, it’s all about the biscuits
If I had to pick a single food that’s been a common thread throughout my life, it would be biscuits. Growing up, my dad made a lot of soups and stews using the wild game he’d hunted or the wild mushrooms we’d foraged. Some of them were good and some were, well, nourishing. I wasn’t a fan of gamey venison or piney spruce grouse but it’s what was on the table and it was by all accounts, nourishing. To sweeten the deal when we were having venison or grouse my dad always made a pan of buttermilk biscuits which we’d slather with butter and drizzle with honey before dunking in our soup.
My first job was at Hardee’s where at age 14 I got up well before the sun on Saturdays and Sundays to, you guessed it, make the biscuits. That was back before they came pre-baked and frozen in a box. I actually had to measure the flour, baking powder, soda and salt then use my hands to work big hunks of shortening into the flour before rolling out the dough and cutting the biscuits with a round metal biscuit cutter. It was my dream job. Just me and the radio and the meditative work of measuring, kneading, cutting and baking. No crabby customers to deal with – just pounds and pounds of fluffy, glutinous dough.
Shortly after I met my hubby in Alaska I made the mistake of whipping up a batch of homemade buttermilk biscuits to serve alongside the clam chowder I’d made after a day of digging littleneck clams in Kachemak Bay just outside of Homer. I say mistake because I was still playing hard to get. I didn’t need a man (or so I thought). Little did I know that buttermilk biscuits were his kryptonite and that after one bite he’d be hell bent on getting me to marry him and stopping at nothing (such as hitchhiking across Alaska with a pint of homemade fireweed jelly he’d made…just for the biscuits). <– No lie
Fast forward to our days in Montana when after pulling together every dollar we had we bought a $25,000 fixer-upper. Soup made from homegrown veggies and local meat was cheap and so were big bags of locally milled flour for biscuits. And then came babies. My daughters ask for biscuits all. the. time but the problem is that we no longer ‘do gluten’. So I had to find a way to 1) make a damn good buttermilk biscuit without gluten, and 2) add some redeeming health properties to the starchy, white gluten-free flour used to make them.
Thus, the Gluten-free Sweet Potato Buttermilk Biscuit was born and everyone at my house unanimously approved
The star of these lightly sweet and incredibly tender biscuits is truly the ingredients not my gifted biscuit-making hands as my husband would have to you believe. You just can’t make a biscuit worth it’s salt without really good butter and buttermilk. Trust me, I’ve made a lot of biscuits in my life. Which is why I was thrilled to partner with our friends at Kalona Supernatural and use their Organic Cultured Buttermilk and unsalted butter for this recipe. Kalona Supernatural is committed to helping small midwest Amish and Mennonite farmers make organic farming a viable lifestyle. And they’re committed to the providing the highest quality organic, non-homogenized, low-temperature pasteurized dairy products from grass-fed cows. Now that’s a company I can really get behind.
If you’ve never made a biscuit in your life, now is the time. These Gluten-free Sweet Potato Buttermilk Biscuits are quite forgiving and easy enough to whip up a batch on a weeknight for the soup or stew you’ve had simmering in the slow cooker all day. And they’re a great way to use up leftover baked or mashed sweet potato (or canned pumpkin).
Life is better with these Gluten-free Sweet Potato Buttermilk Biscuits! #realfood #organic Share on X
Buttermilk makes them better
Sure, you can technically substitute milk + an acid such as lemon juice or vinegar to get ‘sour milk’ to use in place of buttermilk in a recipe but let me say this, it’s not the same. I’ve tried it countless times, even making two batches to compare the buttermilk with the milk + acid and have found that hands down, the buttermilk biscuits are always better. They’re just more tender and the tang from the naturally cultured buttermilk is subtle and almost buttery in nature. Which, when we’re talking biscuits is a big deal.
Don’t be surprised if there aren’t any leftovers
Every time I make a batch of these Gluten-free Sweet Potato Buttermilk Biscuits I double (or triple) the recipe – especially if we’re having company. Once they’re baked and cooled your can wrap them tightly in plastic wrap and store in a zip-top bag in the freezer so you have some on hand for another day. They make great little breakfast sandwiches when topped with a slice of ham, a fried egg, fresh spinach and a slice of tomato.
You can also freeze them from the unbaked state on a baking sheet then transfer them to a freezer-safe storage container or bag. Just remove what you need from the freezer, place on a baking sheet and allow to rest at room temperature while the oven preheats. You can either bake them once they fully thawed or even from a partially frozen state (just add a few more minutes to the baking time).
Now it’s time to slather, drizzle or dunk those gorgeous Gluten-free Sweet Potato Buttermilk Biscuits of yours!
Pssst….looking for that ridiculously creamy soup you see above? That’s our Slow Cooker Chicken Chowder and you’ll find the recipe here.
Gluten-free Sweet Potato Buttermilk Biscuits
Ingredients
- 1 ¾ cups Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free 1-to-1 Baking Flour, plus more for rolling and shaping
- 2 ½ tsp.baking powder
- ¾ tsp. salt
- ¼ tsp. baking soda
- 6 Tbsp. chilled Kalona Supernatural Organic Unsalted Butter, cut into pieces
- ¾ cup mashed sweet potato or pumpkin puree, chilled
- ½ cup Kalona Supernatural Organic Cultured Buttermilk
- ⅛ tsp. ground nutmeg
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400°F.
- In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. Add butter and using a pastry blender or 2 knives, cut butter into dry ingredients until mixture resembles coarse meal with a few larger chunks remaining.
- In a small bowl, whisk together mashed sweet potato (or pumpkin puree), buttermilk and nutmeg.
- Add sweet potato mixture to flour mixture and mix just until combined.
- Turn dough out onto a lightly floured cutting board. Dust dough lightly with flour and use your hands to very lightly knead the dough until it comes together in a smooth ball, adding a bit of flour as needed to keep dough from sticking to your hands.
- Shape dough into a disk ½ – ¾-inch thick.
- Use a floured 2-inch biscuit cutter (or a small mason jar) to cut dough into circles as close together as possible. You can also use a knife to cut the dough into 2×2-inch squares. Gather together scraps, and repeat to cut out more biscuits until dough is used up (being careful not to use too much flour).
- Place biscuits on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, spacing them 1-inch apart. Bake for 15-17 minutes or until bottoms are lightly browned, rotating the pan once during baking.
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Notes
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Note: We have only tested this recipe with the listed ingredients and measurements, unless otherwise noted. If you would like to try a substitution, we would love to have you share what you used and how it turned out in the comments below. Thanks!
Nutrition Information
- Serving Size: 1 biscuit
- Calories: 121
- Fat: 6g
- Sodium: 150mg
- Carbohydrate: 15g
- (Fiber: 2g
- Sugar: 2g)
- Protein: 2g
Dietary
Do you have any favorite food memories? What’s your favorite way to enjoy biscuits? Share in the comments below!
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Lindsay says
These are delicious! Best GF biscuit that I’ve made.
Jessica Beacom says
Awesome! Thanks, Lindsay – glad you loved them!
Melissa Hernandez says
What can I use Instead of buttermilk? I cant Have dairy so I was wondering what I can substitute it with.
Jessica Beacom says
Hi Melissa,
You can substitute your favorite (unflavored, unsweetened) non-dairy milk cup for cup for the buttermilk. To make it acidic like buttermilk (which is necessary for the baking soda-acid reaction that helps them rise without yeast or eggs) you’ll want to add a teaspoon of fresh lemon juice or apple cider vinegar to the non-dairy milk 5 minutes before you add the milk to the recipe (this will essentially help the milk ‘curdle’ a bit like buttermilk).
Heather B says
Mine did not rise… what did I do wrong? They are still so good but they are fairly flat.
Jessica Beacom says
Hi Heather,
Because these are gluten-free (and don’t contain eggs) there is very little rise when baked as compared to a wheat-based biscuit. You can roll them out thicker or shape them by hand into balls then press into thicker discs though this will likely require a longer baking time to ensure they’re cooked through and result in fewer biscuits per batch. I hope that helps!
Roxie S. says
Two questions… Bob’s Red Mill 1-to-1 is really hard to find where I live (unless I order online, which I have done before), but I was just wondering if you had experienced with other brands? If so, did the other brands just not perform as well… or would any 1-to-1 flour do for this recipe? Secondly, what’s the reasoning behind using unsalted butter as opposed to salted? Thanks!
Jessica Beacom says
Hi Roxie,
My experience is that most gluten-free 1:1 (or ‘cup-for-cup’) flour blends that contain xanthan gum work well in this recipe. I’ve used Pamela’s, Cup4Cup and Lillibee with good results – the key is to have very cold butter and handle the dough as little as possible.
The reason baking recipes often call for unsalted butter is so you can better control for the amount of salt (either from salt or baking soda). You can use salted butter but will need to decrease the salt you add to the dough by about 1/4 tsp for this recipe.
Lori Pipal says
Easy and delicious. Will make these again.