Cinnamon and Spice Sweet Potato Bread

Sweet potatoes are always a winner no matter how they’re prepared.

But when baked into sweetly spiced soft bread, they become even better.

I had a couple sweet potatoes to use and rather than just roasting them or making fries with them, I mashed them and baked them into bread. I do it with bananas all the time. Why not sweet potatoes.

I was blown away by the results. The bread turned out ridiculously soft, moist, tender, and richly spiced. It’s almost like cake it’s so soft, tender, and springy. If you like carrot cake or pumpkin-based recipes, you’ll love this bread.

It’s easy to make, and no mixer is needed. Stir everything together and pop the loaf into the oven for about an hour. And your house will smell heavenly during that hour.

Begin by steaming two medium sweet potatoes or one very large sweet potato. Peel the potatoes, dice into one-inch chunks, place in a shallow bowl with a splash of water, cover with plasticwrap and microwave for about 15 minutes, or until fork tender. Drain off any water that’s pooled, and mash with a fork.

If you have another method for steaming, go for it. I do it this way because it’s fast and easy. You could roast the sweet potatoes, but that takes almost an hour, the potatoes will be drier from being roasted than steamed, and you’d need to make some tweaks with dry and wet ingredient ratios in your batter.

After the potatoes cool just a bit so you don’t scramble the eggs, crack two eggs over them, add oil, vanilla, buttermilk (or yogurt or sour cream) and whisk.

In another bowl, combine flour, sugars, baking soda, and a variety of spices. I used cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice, and cloves. Feel free to mix-and-match the spices based on what you have and enjoy. Try pumpkin pie spice, cardamom, or other favorites.

I love cinnamon and the bread is well-spiced and robust, without being overpowering. Many times sweet potato, pumpkin, or carrot-based cakes and breads can be so bland and blah. Orange root vegetables are very hearty and can really soak up, and necessitate, plenty of spice. I made sure to account for that, but add spices to taste.

Add the wet to the dry, and mix until combined. I had to really stir and stir. And stir some more. The dry ingredients seemed to just multiply in the bowl and in the folds of the batter. Every time I thought I had it all folded together, I’d scape the bottom of the bowl and find more stray white bits. Take your time and make sure everything is well combined, but use a gentle hand when stirring so you don’t over-develop the gluten, resulting in tougher bread.

Turn the batter out into a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan or two 8-by-4-inch pans. I used one 9×5 and will probably opt for two 8×4 loaves next time or bake as a Budnt. It’s a cake-like bread and I think it would bake beautifully in a Bundt pan. Or try it as muffins.

The sweet potatoes, oil, and buttermilk all do a wonderful job of keeping the bread supremely soft and moist. Although I’ve compared it to cake, it’s not cakey if that makes sense. It doesn’t have an airy, flaky crumb that many cakes have; otherwise known as being dry.

The interior is tender, springy, and bouncey with a dense crumb. The crust is firmer and slightly chewy. Normally I shun crust and edge pieces on bread, but I found myself seeking them out, like chewy edge pieces on brownies.

The bread is sweet, but not too sweet. A slice or two for breakfast, as a snack, or as a healthier after-dinner treat is how we’ve been enjoying it.

The spices are homey and comforting. Warming spices like the cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice, and cloves are my favorites. I have to restrain myself from making Molasses Cookies and other similar treats for most of the year because they’re out-of-season, so to speak. The spices give the bread such great flavor and squelch my cravings. I want to snuggle up on the couch with a blanket and a cup of chai tea to wash it down with.

It’s perfect on it’s own and doesn’t even need butter. It’s that moist and flavorful. But twist my arm and a little butter never hurts. Or try a Vanilla Browned Butter Glaze for an extra treat.

Sweet potatoes can do no wrong.

Related Recipes

Carrot Cake Loaf with Cream Cheese Frosting – My favorite carrot cake recipe of all time and I bake it in a loaf pan rather than cake pans. The recipe is similar to the sweet potato bread except uses carrots rather than sweet potatoes but the spices and ingredients are similar

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bundt Cake with Chocolate Ganache – My favorite cake on my site. If you crossed the buttery-est yellow cake with pumpkin, added chocolate chips, and draped it all in a rich ganache, this is what you’d get. It’s a one-bowl, whisk-together cake that takes minutes to make, with amazing results. Moist, tender, flavorful, easy and everyone who’s made this cake writes to tell me they make it…again. Always a hit and the flavors, spices, and texture reminds me of the sweet potato bread

Sweet Potato Graham Cracker “French Toast” Sticks – Don’t judge a book by it’s cover. This recipe is how you make potatoes taste like French Toast sticks

Pumpkin Banana Bread with Browned Butter Cream Cheese Frosting – This quickbread pairs two of my favorites, pumpkin bread and banana bread, with plenty of cinnamon-and-spice and scrumptious frosting to boot

Coconut Spice Cheesecake Bars – Part cheese cake, part spice cake,with the flavors of carrot cake and cream cheese frosting. Chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, and coconut are baked in between the cake and cream cheese layers for richly spiced bars that are very fast and easy to make since there’s a shortcut involved

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes with Marshmallow Buttercream Frosting – Swap out the pumpkin for sweet potatoes in these easy, fast cupcakes that make a batch size of just 6

Sweet Potato Red Pepper and Coconut Milk Soup (vegan, gluten-free, soy-free, microwave-friendly) – Fast, easy, and ready in 15 minutes flat

Roasted Sweet Potato and Goat Cheese Pizza on 1-Hour Whole Wheat Pizza Crust – Those are sweet potato rounds, not pepperoni, and so good. Never buy storebought pizza crust again with this easy, healthy, one-hour dough

Do you like sweet potatoes?

If you have a favorite recipe that uses them, please share the links.

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