Spiced Maple Bread — No sugar, no eggs, no butter, and no kneading in this soft, fluffy, super moist and flavorful quick bread!
Lightly Spiced Maple Syrup Bread
I don’t know if beer is exactly healthy, but let’s say it is.
It would mean that this bread is pure health food. Sure, I’ll go with that.
When I made Honey Beer Bread, I was so pleased with the taste, texture, and ease of the one-bowl, no-kneading recipe, I knew I had to experiment more.
This maple bread is vegan and refined sugar-free. That’s right, there are no eggs in this fluffy-rising loaf with a soft, moist, open crumb.
The natural sweetness from the sweet potato, along with maple syrup and robust dark molasses, provide a gentle and subtle sweetness.
What Does the Bread Taste Like?
This loaf has a firmer outer crust, with a soft, ridiculously moist, dense yet springy interior.
The sweet potato lends tons of moisture and slight texture, reminiscent of the texture you’d find in a grainy or wheaty loaf, minus any whole grains or whole wheat flour used.
The spices and maple flavor are present, but on the fainter side. Normally I go very heavy-handed with spices, but kept them to a modest level.
It makes excellent toast, and I bet it would have made excellent French toast, but the loaf was devoured in record time. My family commented on how soft and moist the bread is, and both of them scarfed down 2 slices of toast.
Then they asked for 2 more slices, each. There went the loaf.
Maple Bread Ingredients
To make this simple quick bread with maple syrup, you’ll need:
- Cooked, mashed sweet potato
- Oil
- Molasses
- Pure maple syrup (NOT pancake syrup)
- Ground cinnamon, nutmeg & cloves
- Salt
- All-purpose flour
- Baking powder
- Beer
What Type of Beer Should I Use?
I used one bottle of Stella Artois, chosen by default. Use what you enjoy.
I’m in Aruba and selected it from a local grocery store because it was 12-ounces and many local brews are bottled smaller. The label was in English and I could read it, and I’ve seen people drink it in bars in the U.S., so I figured it wasn’t awful.
How to Make Maple Bread
If you’re an experienced baker like I am, the prep time for this maple syrup bread takes about 5 minutes. Experienced or not, this is a very easy recipe!
Here’s an overview of how the bread is made:
- Microwave one small sweet potato, peel it, and mash it in a big mixing bowl.
- Add a drizzle of oil, molasses, pure maple syrup, and the spices.
- Stir in the all-purpose flour, baking powder, and pour a 12-ounce bottle of beer over it. It’ll foam up and look like a bubbling science experiment, which is the yeast in the beer interacting with the baking powder, and all those bubbles are going to help the dough rise in the oven!
- Turn the batter into a greased 9×5-inch loaf pan and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Let cool for at least 15 minutes before removing from the loaf pan!
Recipe Variations to Try
Make it savory: You can take this bread more savory by skipping the molasses, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves, and replacing with garlic powder, onion powder, curry, seasoning salt, or a favorite grill seasoning. I suggest agave instead of maple because it’s cleaner tasting and won’t compete as much with the savory elements.
Swap the sweet potato: I imagine you could use about 1/2 cup pumpkin puree if you have any lingering and begging to be used.
Swap the flour: I haven’t tested using whole wheat flour, but I wouldn’t use more than 50% or the bread could be very dense and/or not rise well. I have no idea if gluten-free flour blends will work.
Ways to Eat This Bread
You can enjoy this maple bread in savory or sweet recipes. Try it:
- As toast
- As sandwich bread
- In french toast or french toast casserole
- Topped with jam and / or butter
- With maple butter
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Spiced Maple Bread
Ingredients
- about 1/2 cup mashed sweet potato, the flesh from 1 small cooked and peeled sweet potato
- 2 tablespoons canola, vegetable, or melted coconut oil
- 2 tablespoons light, medium, dark molasses (not blackstrap, too bitter)
- ⅓ cup maple syrup, I used sugar-free
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ½ teaspoon ground cloves
- ½ teaspoon salt, optional and to taste
- 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 12 ounces beer (I used Stella Artois
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375F. Spray a 9×5-inch loaf pan with floured cooking spray, or grease and flour the pan; set aside.
- Add the sweet potato to a large mixing bowl (I microwaved the sweet potato for 7 minutes, let it cool momentarily, peeled it, and mashed it with a fork in the mixing bowl).
- Add the next 7 ingredients, through optional salt, and whisk to combine. Some small sweet potato lumps will be present and that’s okay.
- Add the flour, baking powder, and slowly pour the beer over the top. It will bubble and foam. Stir until combined and no white bits remain at bottom of bowl. Batter is thick, gloppy, and dense.
- Turn batter out into prepared pan, smoothing the top lightly with a spatula. Bake for about 40 minutes, or until top is domed, firm and set, and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs, but no batter.
- Allow bread to cool in pan for about 15 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely. Slice using a serrated knife.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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More Easy Quick Bread Recipes:
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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?
Sweet Potato Cornbread — Homemade cornbread just got better because it’s jazzed up with mashed sweet potatoes, brown sugar, and pumpkin pie spice!
Honey Beer Bread — The easiest beer bread ever! No kneading, no yeast, and guaranteed soft and fluffy results every time!
This looks so good! I make my own beer and some of it comes out great and some comes out… not great. Always looking for recipes to use up the “not great” and I think my “maple brown” (blech!) will work well here! Thanks again!!
I actually have another reader who’s told me she and her hubs brew at home and they use their less than perfect stuff in bread :) LMK if you try!
Oh wow this looks really good, and the fact it’s a no knead bread makes it even more appealing. Toasted it looks even better, I love flavoured bread for toast it makes it far more interesting then boring old bread that you need to slather in jam just to add some flavour.
You make everything so moist! The vegan recipe + moistness + sweet potato/maple is everything I love about this recipe you created!
Beer is totally healthy! I love the texture beer adds to bread and you can’t go wrong with maple syrup and sweet potatoes!
What an intriguing combination of flavors! I don’t typically buy beer (since I too am not a huge fan of it), but I’m on board for getting some to use it in baking!
I’m sure this would be devoured in record time for us too! Except Jason doesn’t really care for bread so yes, I would devour this alone in record time. No shame in that at all!
Some of the best and easiest bread I’ve ever made and of all things, I do ‘like’ bread but I don’t love-love it (give me cookies please) but I LOVED this bread!
“I don’t know if beer is exactly healthy, but let’s say it is.”…sounds like a thought that’s run through my head a time or two :)
This sounds incredible! I have been staring at a half-empty bottle of molasses in my pantry just wondering what to do with it post-holidays. What perfect timing! Love the suggestion above in the comments about using hard cider. Beyond switching up the spices, I bet using light, dark, IPA, stout beers, as well as cider, etc. can produce a million different variations.
using light, dark, IPA, stout beers, as well as cider, etc. can produce a million different variations <-- EXACTLY and if you know beer (I am clueless), you could have lots of fun!
This bread looks incredible, Averie!
I made this bread tonight-TWICE! The first time, I followed the recipe but my sweet potato was a bit on the large size, so the bread never quite cooked in the middle-after almost 75 minutes too! The 2nd time I used a half cup of sweet potato. It fared a little better, but had a giant air hole right in the middle all the way through. HELP! What did I do wrong??? The bread smelled amazing while it was baking, and had good flavor-at least the outside that wasn’t mushy, lol
Not sure what to say because I had another lady make it with great success. Are you using a high quality flour like King Arthur? It’s really the best for bread. Is your baking powder fresh? Is your oven running up to par? For the giant airhole, if you give your baking pan a gentle slam on the counter a couple times before baking, that releases air bubbles. I always do that before I put quickbreads or cakes into the oven.
Okay, so since I’m scared of sweet potatoes (I KNOW, you question our friendship every day, right?) I would love to make this with regular potatoes. Or, maybe sometime we’ll be in the same city and you can shop with me and help me know which is a sweet potato and which is a yam. :)
You’re nuts :) Okay most of the time yams are sold as orange ‘sweet potatoes’ but they’re really yams. True sweet potatoes tend to be paler/white and look like a russet potato (similar) in the groc store. So what most people call sweet potatoes, they’re really garnet yams. In technicality, I used a garnet yam but called it a sweet potato b/c 99% of everyone else does. May as well follow along with the misblabing epidemic as to not add more confusion :) But really any tater you want to use, yam, sweet potato, or even just a white plain potato will be fine but honestly you like pumpkin so much, how do you not like sweet pots? They’re so much BETTER than pumpkin puree. You could also just use pumpkin puree in here and bump up the flour by maybe 1/4 cup or so since it’s runnier. Yeah we need to go groc shopping together…or just drinking :)
I love this combination, Averie! I’m sure beer has some healthy qualities. Pinning.
Thanks Jennie for pinning and sure, it’s healthy :)
LOL yes beer is healthy in moderation
Great for your blood, your hair, and I think it has some minerals in it?
Have a great weekend Av.
I love the way you think! Have a great weekend too and stay warm! xoxo
This sounds awesome! Hopefully I don’t finish the beer before making the bread :P
LOL! not an issue for me, but if I was making say champagne bread, that would be a challenge :)
Sweet potato and maple – yes please, sign me up!
I actually really like cinnamon in savory things. I think it plays off those flavors really well. Of course, I am a weirdo, and I don’t eat what most people do. :D
The bread looks fantastic and I can’t believe you were baking bread in ARUBA!!
I love cinn in pretty much everything but if I don’t temper my thoughts a bit, I get all kinds of ‘this would have been so good without out that cinnamon that just overpowers everything’ comments :) We’re the same weirdo, remember!
And yes remember when you were emailing me and I was like Im so busy I can’t even find the beach…yeah, exactly.
Saw this on Pinterest, immediately knew it was yours and I was so delighted. Love the low sugar in this recipe and the idea of using up extra sweet potatoes. PINNED. xoxo
Thanks for pinning and that’s cool that you recognized it immediately as mine. That’s cool when that happens! And yes super low sugar, vegan, and a great way to use up extra sweet potatoes! Have a great 2014 xoxox