Sweet Potato Bread

A few weekends ago the age old question of – “What should I make?” struck me.  After perusing through my cabinets and with holiday season upon us … I decided to make a Sweet Potato Bread.  Of course, I could have gone with the ever popular Pumpkin Bread. Since, I don’t like Pumpkin anything, I nixed that idea.

It seems that Pumpkin and Butternut Squash are the most popular items for autumn. I don’t care for either. Picky eater table of one!

I love Sweet Potatoes — okay I love Sweet Potato Pie and Candied Sweet Potatoes. I chose to see this bread making experiment as a challenge – step out my comfortable box and try something different.

It’s great to stretch one’s boundaries from time to time. It’s even better when it’s a success.

This particular Sweet Potato Bread is more like a sweet/spicy bread with undertones of Sweet Potato.  Moist like the Banana Bread and finished off with a crumb topping.   Dare I say if you were doing homemade gifts this would be a great gift to give!

This year I am going to do homemade/ quasi homemade gifts for my family, except for my youngest nephew – I don’t have a way of making a homemade or even semi-homemade iPod.

I hope you will also enjoy this recipe as much as my office guinea pigs did!

Sweet Potato Bread
Adapted from My Kitchen Café’s Buttermilk Banana Bread

½ cup butter or margarine, softened

1 ½ cups granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 ¼ cup baked & mashed sweet potatoes or 1 large sweet potato baked and mashed

4 tablespoons buttermilk

½ teaspoon of vanilla bean paste

1 tablespoon of robust molasses

½ teaspoon of cinnamon

¼ teaspoon of nutmeg

Pinch of ground cloves

½ teaspoon of allspice

¼ teaspoon of ground ginger

1 ¾ cups of all purpose flour

1 teaspoon of baking powder

¼ teaspoon of salt

1/8 teaspoon of baking soda

Preheat oven to 350F degrees.

Sift together flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda in a bowl and set aside.

In a bowl cream butter and sugar together; add eggs one at a time until incorporated.  Add in the following: mashed sweet potatoes, buttermilk, vanilla bean paste, molasses, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, allspice, and ginger; mix all together.

Add the dry sifted ingredients into the wet mixture; mix until combined.

Pour mixture into a large greased loaf pan (9 ¼ x 5 ¼ inch) and bake for 55 -60 minutes.

Let cool for approximately an hour before serving.

Note: You can top the batter before baking with either an evenly coating of brown sugar or a crumb topping for some extra razzle dazzle!

Until next time!
Jennifer