Damaris's Sweet Potato Biscuits:
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra as needed
2 tablespoons brown sugar or honey (we used brown sugar)
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper (after making them once with cayenne, I left it out subsequent times because they were WAY TOO SPICY)
6 tablespoons chilled unsalted butter, cubed
3/4 cup mashed sweet potato, cold
1/3 cup buttermilk or regular milk if it's not worth it to have to use up the rest of the container of buttermilk
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, salt, baking soda, and cayenne. Using a pastry cutter, cut in the chilled butter until the mixture is in smaller pieces than frozen peas. If you don't have a pastry cutter or prefer using your hands, you can rub the butter into the flour with your fingertips. This is a great method that I learned from Alex Guarnaschelli.
Stir together the sweet potato and buttermilk in a separate bowl until smooth. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the sweet potato mixture. Combine until it just comes together. Be very careful to not over-mix, or the dough will become tough.
Generously flour your table and your hands, and put the dough in the floured area. Knead it just until it comes together. If the dough is too sticky, work in up to 1/4 cup additional flour. Shape into a disk and pat to an even 1- to 1 1/2-inch thickness. Cut out biscuits using an upside-down glass. Gather together scraps, and repeat to cut out more biscuits. You can use a smaller glass to make mini-biscuits.
Butter a baking sheet and place each biscuit 1/2 inch apart. Brush with melted butter and bake until golden brown, 20 to 25 minutes.
Note: Making a well in the center of the dry ingredients means pushing all of the ingredients to the sides of the bowl so the middle of the bowl is empty. You then pour a little bit of the wet mixture in at a time and quickly whisk or stir the dry ingredients into the wet, constantly adding more wet mixture, until the dough is even. This will be a very sticky dough.