Sweet potatoes do a wonderful job of keeping this bread extremely soft and moist. It's almost like cake it's so soft, springy, and bouncy!
Prep Time20 minutesmins
Cook Time1 hourhr
Total Time1 hourhr20 minutesmins
Course: Bread, Rolls, Muffins & Breakfast
Cuisine: American
Keyword: fall bread recipes, recipe for sweet potato bread, sweet potato bread, sweet potato loaf, sweet potato quick bread
Servings: 12
Calories: 306kcal
Author: Averie Sunshine
Ingredients
1 ½cupsmashed sweet potatoes2 medium or 1 very large
3tablespoonswater
2large eggs
½cupcanola or vegetable oil
¼cupbuttermilkor yogurt, Greek yogurt, sour cream, or buttermilk powder
1teaspoonvanilla extract
1 ¾cupsall-purpose flour
1 ¼cupsgranulated sugar
¼cuplight brown sugarpacked
2teaspoonsbaking soda
1tablespoonground cinnamon
1teaspoonground ginger
1teaspoonground nutmeg
½teaspoonground allspice
½teaspoonground cloves
pinchsaltoptional and to taste
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350F. Spray one 9-by-5-inch loaf pan (what I used), or two 8-by-4-inch loaf pans, or a 10-cup Bundt pan, or a muffin pan with floured cooking spray or grease and flour the pan(s); set aside.
Peel the sweet potatoes and chop them into 1-inch sized chunks. Place chunks in a large, shallow microwave-safe bowl. Add 3 tablespoons water, cover with plastic wrap, and cook on high power for 15 to 17 minutes, or until potatoes are very fork-tender. Pour off any water. Mash sweet potatoes with a fork. Allow them to cool momentarily so you don't scramble the eggs.
To the sweet potatoes, add the eggs, oil, buttermilk, vanilla and whisk until combined; set aside. (I used buttermilk powder and added 1 tablespoon powder to the dry ingredients and 1/4 cup water to this wet mixture)
In a large mixing bowl, combine the dry ingredients - flour, sugars, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice, cloves, optional salt, and whisk to combine.
Pour the wet sweet potato mixture over the dry ingredients, and stir to incorporate. Take your time stirring until no stray bits of dry ingredients are visible, folding and scraping the bottom of the bowl with a spatula as necessary because it's very easy to miss dry ingredients hiding at the bottom of the bowl in this batter. Stir and fold with a gentle hand as to not over-mix and over-develop the gluten, which results in tougher bread.
Turn batter out into prepared pan(s), smoothing the top lightly with a spatula. Bake for 60 to 70 minutes for a 9x5 pan, or until top is domed, golden, loaf is springy to the touch, and cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Tent pan with foil in the last 15 minutes of cooking if top is browning a bit fast before interior has cooked through.
Allow bread to cool in pan for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
Notes
I estimate that 8x4 loaves will take about 40 to 45 minutes, a Bundt about 1 hour, muffins about 18-20 minutes, but I haven't tried those versions and they are just guesstimates.
Bread will keep at room temperature for up to 1 week. I store my bread by wrapping the completely cooled loaf in plasticwrap, and then placing loaf inside a gallon-sized Ziplock.