Sweet Potato Biscuit Muffins - A Holiday Baking Mishap

Ironically, it's always this time of year -- prime baking season -- when I have baking mishaps. I chalk it up to being in a rush and not reading directions. Case in point, a few weeks before Christmas, I hosted another holiday open house and decided to make Sweet Potato Biscuits with Ham, Mustard and Honey. Although the recipe was recently published in the December issue of Bon Appetit, I had been wanting to make it since reading about it in Molly Wizenberg's book, A Homemade Life. Heck, I even tracked down the mustard she recommended in preparation.

But in my haste, I did not read the whole recipe closely enough and neglected to let the sweet potato mash (made from potatoes purchased during my final farmers market run) cool before mixing it with the dried ingredients and cold cubed butter. Needless to say, the chilled butter melted on contact with the mash, resulting in a gloppy mess. Since there was no way I could roll out the sticky dough, I decided to try to salvage the biscuits by scooping the dough into muffin tins and baking as is. Although the end result was a little flat and heavy, it actually worked really well, and the "biscuit muffins" were perfectly shaped -- even more so than they would have been had I attempted to cut them out of the rolled dough. Just goes to show that there are holiday miracles this time of year after all. Maybe I should get out the almond meal and attempt macarons again...or maybe not!