Cinnamon and Spice Sweet Potato Bread — 🍁🍠🍂 Wondering what to do with those leftover sweet potatoes? Make this quick bread recipe! 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!
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This sweet potato bread turned out ridiculously soft, moist, tender, and richly spiced. It’s almost like cake it’s so soft, tender, and springy!
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.
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.
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.
This sweet potato bread is delicious, it’s like Starbucks pumpkin bread just better. Thanks for the awesome recipe 😋 — Crystal
Sweet Potato Bread Ingredients
This is such a quick and easy recipe for sweet potato bread that calls for very basic ingredients.
To make this sweet potato bread recipe, you’ll need:
- Sweet potatoes
- Water
- Eggs
- Canola oil
- Buttermilk
- Vanilla extract
- All-purpose flour
- Light brown sugar
- Baking soda
- Spices
- Salt
Note: Scroll down to the recipe card section of the post for the ingredients with amounts included and for more complete directions.
How to Make Sweet Potato Bread
If you’ve made pumpkin bread before, you can certainly make a sweet potato loaf!
Full instructions can be found in the recipe card below, but here’s an overview of the baking process:
- Begin by steaming two medium sweet potatoes or one very large sweet potato. Drain off any water that’s pooled, and mash with a fork.
- 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 together in a large bowl to create a sort of sweet potato puree.
- In another bowl, combine flour, sugars, baking soda, and a variety of spices.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry, and mix until combined. 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 9×5-inch loaf pan or two 8×4-inch pans. I used one 9×5-inch or you can opt for two 8×4 loaves (they will be short) or bake as a Bundt.
Recipe Variations
One thing I love about this recipe is how easy it is to customize! Here are some simple recipe variations you can try:
- Adjust the 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.
- Add mix-ins: You can try adding mix-ins like chocolate chips, chopped nuts such as chopped pecans, or dried fruit.
- Use a different loaf pan: I used a 9×5-inch loaf pan to make this recipe, but two 8×4-inch pans will also work. Or, use a small Bundt pan.
- Make muffins: Skip the loaf pan altogether and make muffins instead! Reduce the bake time to 18 – 22 minutes (use your best judgement when testing for doneness).
Recipe FAQs
Possibly, but I’ve only made the recipe as written so I can’t say for sure. If you give this a try, leave me a comment letting me know how your bread turned out!
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.
I’m sure you can! I imagine this sweet potato spice bread will keep up to 6 months in the freezer.
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.
No, it tastes more like a pumpkin bread. The bread is sweet, but not too sweet with just the right amount of natural sweetness from the sweet potatoes. The spices are homey and comforting.
Made this recipe for my neighbors. As usual, I made two loaves – one for my house, one as a gift. That first loaf lasted an hour before my family finished it off. — Amber
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Cinnamon Sweet Potato Bread
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups mashed sweet potatoes, 2 medium or 1 very large
- 3 tablespoons water
- 2 large eggs
- ½ cup canola or vegetable oil
- ¼ cup buttermilk, (or yogurt, Greek yogurt, sour cream, or buttermilk powder mixed with the proper amount of water as stated on package)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 ¼ cups granulated sugar
- ¼ cup light brown sugar, packed
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger, or to taste
- 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg, or to taste
- ½ teaspoon ground allspice, or to taste
- ½ teaspoon ground cloves, or to taste
- ¼ teaspoon salt, or 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. (Or boil in a pot of water on the stove, drain very well). Pour off any water. Mash sweet potatoes with a fork. Allow them to cool momentarily so you don't scramble the eggs.
- To the mashed 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 9×5 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; if it takes longer than 70 minutes, so be it – bake it longer. Baking Times – I estimate that 8×4 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. No matter what, always bake until your item is done, however long that takes in your oven given your pan.
- Allow bread to cool in pan for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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More Fall Bread Recipes:
ALL OF MY QUICK BREAD RECIPES!
Applesauce Bread with Cinnamon Honey Butter – This applesauce bread is packed with fall flavors and comes together quickly. I serve mine with homemade honey butter, because why not?
Apple Carrot Bread— This apple carrot bread tastes like carrot cake that’s been infused with apples. It’s a no mixer recipe that goes from bowl to oven in minutes!
Apple Pie Bread with Streusel Topping — 🍎🍏🍁 If you like apple crumble pie, you’re going to love this EASY no-mixer apple pie bread! Soft, tender, moist bread with the contrast of the slightly crunchy crumble topping is PERFECT!
Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bread — This is without a doubt the BEST pumpkin bread recipe! This pumpkin cream cheese bread tastes like it has cheesecake baked into the middle. You’ll definitely want a second slice!
Applesauce Bread with Cinnamon Honey Butter— This applesauce bread is packed with fall flavors and comes together quickly. I serve mine with homemade honey butter, because why not?
Cranberry Orange Bread— The fresh cranberries in this cranberry orange bread contrast nicely with the sweet orange glaze, making it the perfect blend of sweet and tart!
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread— This pumpkin chocolate chip bread is truly the best homemade pumpkin bread you’ll ever make. It’s moist, packed with chocolate chips, and tastes like fall!
Apple Fritter Bread — The bread tastes as decadent as the apple fritters of my childhood, no deep frying required and it’s more like cake disguised as bread.
Originally posted April 3, 2013 and reposted September 18, 2020 and October 25, 2024 with updated text.
Can this be done in air fryer
Perhaps it could be, but you would have to halve the recipe for it to fit in most standard air fryers, have a baking pan attachment, and experiment with baking time/temp.
Bottom line – make as written. This is an amazing recipe that if you just follow it and pop it in a normal oven you will love.
Very tasty!! Will be adding nuts next time!
Made this recipe for my neighbors. As usual, I made two loaves – one for my house, one as a gift. That first loaf lasted an hour before my family finished it off.
I added a dash of cardamom to mine but otherwise followed the recipe closely. Happy to discover that sweet potato bread is as good as I hoped it would be!
Made this recipe for my neighbors. As usual, I made two loaves – one for my house, one as a gift. That first loaf lasted an hour before my family finished it off.
I added a dash of cardamom to mine but otherwise followed the recipe closely. Happy to discover that sweet potato bread is as good as I hoped it would be!
Thanks for the 5 star review and glad this was such a hit that loaf #1 only lasted a few hours! This recipe is a decade only nearly and it’s still a personal fave. Great to hear you loved it!
Just made a double batch. 6 mini loaves and one tray of mini muffins. I added a cup of dried cranberries that were moisten with a little water and microwaved 2 min. They all turned out Delicious!!! I sprinkled almonds on top b4 baking and thick glazed them with powdered sugar and cranberry juice… My veggie haters gave it a 10..
Just made a double batch. 6 mini loaves and one tray of mini muffins. I added a cup of dried cranberries that were moisten with a little water and microwaved 2 min. They all turned out Delicious!!! I sprinkled almonds on top b4 baking and thick glazed them with powdered sugar and cranberry juice… My veggie haters gave it a 10..
I am glad you were able to turn this in mini loaves and mini muffins and that everything turned out delicious!
Had a sweet potato that needed using, and this recipe was great! Interesting making it as a Brit seeing differences, like i reduced spices to 1tsp of Cinnamon and 1tsp of Mixed Spice as i thought that seemed a lot and worked great perfect spice quantity to compliment the sweetness. Would also say a bit to sweet like feels quite indulgent so would be tempted in future to add less sugar or something that would cut the sweetness. Don’t mean this at all harshly just worth bearing in mind to Europeans wanting to try this recipe!
Slightly cheeky but found cups quite tricky to use and had to buy them specially, most Europeans use metric or imperial like grams, millilitres etc.. Would you consider adding those to future recipes to help globalize them for different countries?
Had a sweet potato that needed using, and this recipe was great! Interesting making it as a Brit seeing differences, like i reduced spices to 1tsp of Cinnamon and 1tsp of Mixed Spice as i thought that seemed a lot and worked great perfect spice quantity to compliment the sweetness. Would also say a bit to sweet like feels quite indulgent so would be tempted in future to add less sugar or something that would cut the sweetness. Don’t mean this at all harshly just worth bearing in mind to Europeans wanting to try this recipe!
Slightly cheeky but found cups quite tricky to use and had to buy them specially, most Europeans use metric or imperial like grams, millilitres etc.. Would you consider adding those to future recipes to help globalize them for different countries?
No, I use cups and teaspoons and for the past 13 years I’ve had my site all 3000 recipes++ on my site are written that way, I truly cannot imagine the epic task of changing them all.
Glad you liked the bread overall.
Good morning! Has anyone tried cutting back on the sugar in this recipe? If so , how did it turn out? Thank you!
You could probably reduce the white sugar by 1/4 to 1/3 cup. I wouldn’t go less than that or it will affect texture as well as taste.
I’ve been baking this recipe for years and I’ve always doubled the recipe and added about a cup and a half of grated carrots…. you can’t taste them, they just break up the heaviness. Great recipe!!
I’ve been baking this recipe for years and I’ve always doubled the recipe and added about a cup and a half of grated carrots…. you can’t taste them, they just break up the heaviness. Great recipe!!
Great to hear you’ve been making this for years and that’s a good trick/tip about the carrots to break up the texture a bit!
I’ve been baking this recipe for years and I’ve always added about a cup and a half of grated carrots…. you can’t taste them, they just break up the heaviness. Great recipe!!
If I add pecans or walnuts (about 1/4 – 1/2 cup) to the recipe, what would I need to change in the recipe? Would I need to add more buttermilk and/or oil? Thanks.
No I wouldn’t change a thing. Diced/chopped walnuts or pecans, a generous 1/3 cup would be fine without effecting anything, basically a half cup is fine. Don’t sprinkle them on top though, they will burn. They need to be incorporated into the batter at the end.
great
I always reduce the sugar in recipes, but should not have cut it by 1/2 as one reviewer recommended. By doing so, the spices were a bit strong. Texture was great. Very nice flavor. Will definitely make again!
This sweet potato bread is delicious, it’s like Starbucks pumpkin bread just better. Thanks for the awesome recipe 😋