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.
I made this as muffins for breakfast with Bob’s gf flour and flax instead of egg. I also used 3/4 cup of each sugar. I couldn’t get all the brown sugar lumps smooth in the batter, but during the baking they became delicious bits of caramel throughout the muffins. I will add lumps on purpose the next time I make them (tonight ;) ). Great recipe! Thanks :)
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m glad it came out great for you as both GF and with a flax egg! Sometimes brown sugar does do that lumpy thing no matter how hard you try to smoosh them out and when it happens in cookies, I love those caramely bits! Glad you’re making them again – tonight! Awesome!
I’ve made it twice and successfully used greek yogurt instead of buttermilk (1/2 cup) and used applesauce instead of oil (but I used 1/4 cup-so basically I swapped the amount of oil with the amount of yogurt). Instead of granulated and brown sugars, I used just 1 cup of agave, and I made it with spelt flour. It’s amazing!
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m glad it came out great for you with the changes you made! Great news!
Thanks for your reply. I wasn’t expecting you to measure ingredients to 0.1g. This isn’t biochemistry after all.
The confusion stems from how we approach the recipe. I normally expect to know the quantity first, then do the preparation and add to the mixture. In your example of banana bread, the recipe I use often calls for 2 ripe bananas, about 250g, mash them and add to the mixture and not mashing them up and measure what is needed. You are correct in that such rustic recipes are very forgiving and a couple of ounces either way won’t make much of a difference.
I’m going to try this at the weekend and find out what weight will give me 1.5 cups of sweet potatoes. Have you tried boiling the sweet potatoes? Perhaps they will get too watery?
I would like to try this recipe but I’m not sure how much sweet potatoes exactly I will need. How does one “measure” 1.5 cups of sweet potato – level, heaped and how tightly packed? The description of 2 medium or 1 very large potato is not very accurate, either. Are we talking about 1lb/500g or 1.5lbs/700g ? I am sure it will make a big a difference to how it turns out.
Ingredients such as butter, flour and sugar, I can use a conversion chart. But things like potatoes, onions or cauliflower, I simply cannot fathom out how much will constitutes a cup. Kind regards.
Once you have the potatoes mashed up, you measure out 1 1/2 cups. The same way you’d mash bananas for banana bread and then put the mash into a measuring cup until and measure it out. You don’t need to ‘pack’ it into the cup, just put the mashed puree into the cup, and measure. And really, the recipe is pretty forgiving and if you’re a little over or a little under 1 1/2 cups on the nose, more than likely things will be okay. I don’t write or enjoy developing recipes where you need to have things measured out to the very last tenth of a gram. I’m not the kind of cook! Enjoy the bread!
how would this go with gluten free flour?
Haven’t tried it with GF so not sure what the results would be.
For some reason, when I pinned this to Pinterest, the title that shows is “Thai Chicken Salad with Roasted Peanuts” and not “Cinnamon and Spice Sweet Potato Bread”.
Thanks for LMK and my tech team thinks it’s a temporary Pinterest glitch – hopefully it is and they’ll get it straightened out asap!
This recipe sounds wonderful, but there’s way too much sugar! I’m pre-diabetic and allergic to artificial sweeteners, so what’s the minimum amount of sugar you can use and not affect the quality of the recipe.
This bread is wonderful! my whole family loves it. Thats including my 19 month old. My husband doesn’t even like baked goods. I use whole wheat flour. I also used honey instead of granulated sugar. I have not with this recipe yet but I like to substitute the oil for applesauce. Oh, I also make them as muffins. Your cooking time is perfect. Thank you so much for this awesome recipe. I love feeding my family healthy hearty wholesome foods that taste delicious!
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m glad it came out great for you! Glad the whole family loves it including your 19 mo old! Great that you were able to use w.w. flour, honey, and that you can make them as muffins…all the little tweaks working out for you and the family is happy….love hearing things like this :)
Hi! I’m a senior in high school who came across your recipe while looking for a different bread to bake for my teachers (it was around Christmas time). [I’m not much of a baker, either, so the easier the recipe the better.] When I saw your recipe, I decided to give it a try and I got amazing results. My teachers loved it and my mom loved the way it smelled (lol ^-^). They’ve all asked for the recipe! So far, I’ve given it to about 10 teachers and I hope to bake more for my friends! Thank you so much for posting this. You are now my go-to blog for nice, quick, and unique recipes whenever I’m inspired to cook.
Much love,
Chandler
PS: I see people are posting modifications they’re making to your recipe, so I thought I’d share mine: (1) I used Plain, Probiotic Greek Yogurt instead of the other options, (2) I added crushed walnuts to most of my batters, and (3) even though I switched back and forth between unbleached and whole wheat flour (from Walmart, sorry I forgot the brands :/), I didn’t really taste much of a change in flavor or texture! Also, I would occasionally add just a little bit of liquid aloe vera to give the bread a health boost. [My family is going gluten-free :)]