I guarantee this Sweet Potato Bread recipe will become your new go-to quick bread. It’s flavorful, lightly sweetened, incredibly moist, and even healthy! It’s made with 100% whole-wheat flour, naturally sweetened and made with heart-heathy olive oil.
What is Sweet Potato Bread
Sweet potato bread is a quick bread recipe that utilizes quick-acting leaveners, such as baking soda and baking powder. Using these quick-acting leaveners allows you to bake bread immediately. Think banana bread but instead of the banana we’re using mashed sweet potatoes.
Watch How to Make Sweet Potato Bread
Ingredients in Sweet Potato Bread
Whole-Wheat Pastry Flour
For recipes that are more delicate, like a quick bread or cake, I like to use whole-wheat pastry flour. It’s lighter and finer than regular whole-wheat flour and makes for an easy swap with all-purpose flour.
Baking Soda & Baking Powder
The combination of these two leaveners is important for giving the bread lift and keeping it light.
Coconut Sugar or Granulated Sugar
I prefer coconut sugar over refined sugars (white sugar and brown sugar) because it’s far less processed. Coconut sugar does have a lower glycemic index which means it’s metabolized slower in the body and causes a lower and slower rise in blood sugar levels. If you don’t have coconut sugar, you can also use granulated sugar.
Olive Oil
I prefer to use extra-virgin olive oil instead of vegetable oil. Not only is olive oil more flavorful, but it’s far healthier than canola or veg oil.
Buttermilk
Buttermilk is important for keeping this bread nice and moist and also activates the baking soda.
Sweet Potato
This recipe uses pureed sweet potato (you’ll need to roast and mash a tater prior to making this recipe). The sweet potato adds natural sweetness, flavor and moisture to the bread, much like mashed banana or pumpkin purée would.
Eggs
Make sure you’re using large eggs (should measure about ¼ cup each or 50 grams).
Spices
Dried ginger, salt and nutmeg are the perfect mix of spices for this bread, but feel free to add your favorite warm spies like cinnamon, allspice and/or cloves. I also add dried rosemary for a flavor surprise.
Dried Cranberries
These are optional, but I like the pop of sweet-tart flavor they add.
Optional Topping
I like to add a sweet and salty crunchy topping to this bread. It’s totally optional but makes the bread in my opinion. The topping is made with raw pepitas (pumpkin seeds), raw sunflower seeds, oats, turbinado sugar and flaky sea salt.
How to make sweet potato bread
Aside from whipping up a sweet potato purée (which is totally hands-off), nothing is out of the ordinary here. Follow the visual step-by-step guide below for perfect sweet potato bread!
Step 1 & 2: Preheat oven to 350 ºF (177ºC). Combine dry ingredients. In a separate bowl combine wet ingredients.
Step 3: Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and mix just until it starts to come together. There should still be pockets of dry flour.
Step 4: fold in dried cranberries just until combined.
Step 5: Transfer batter to prepared baking pan and smooth top. Sprinkle topping evenly over batter.
Step 6: bake until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
More Quick Bread to Love…
Healthy Sweet Potato Bread
Directions
Ingredients
- 1 ¾ cups (180g) whole wheat pastry flour
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon dried ginger
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1 cup sweet potato purée (click for recipe)
- 2 large eggs
- ½ cup coconut sugar or regular cane sugar
- ⅓ cup buttermilk
- ⅓ cup olive oil
- 1 ½ teaspoons dried rosemary optional, crumbled
- ½ cup dried cranberries
Grain and Seed Topping
- 1 tablespoon raw unsalted pumpkin seeds
- 1 tablespoon raw unsalted sunflower seeds
- 1 tablespoon old-fashioned oats
- 1 tablespoon turbinado sugar or coconut sugar
- ½ teaspoon flaky sea salt
Instructions
- Heat oven to 350°F (177ºC) with rack set in middle position.
- Coat a 8½ × 4½-inch loaf pan with nonstick spray. Line pan with parchment paper, leaving a 2-inch overhang on two sides.
- Whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, ginger, salt and nutmeg; set aside.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together sweet potato purée, eggs, sugar, buttermilk, oil, and rosemary.
- Add flour mixture to sweet potato mixture and mix just until combined; fold in cranberries.
- Scrape batter into prepared pan and smooth top.
- Combine seeds, oats, turbinado sugar, and sea salt; sprinkle evenly over batter.
- Bake bread until dark brown on top and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 55–65 minutes.
- Let bread cool completely in pan set on a wire rack.
Notes
Nutrition
This recipe and article were originally published on October 16th 2019.
This bread looks so soft, fluffy and amazing! I love the presentation with the seeds on top too – just stunning.
Thank you Katerina! 🙂 I’m in love with this one!
This bread is SO amazing and hearty!! I absolutely loved the seed topping and the addition of cranberries in the bread. I will definitely be making this at Thanksgiving too.
This is perfect – especially the seed topping!!
The process photos were so helpful when making this DELICIOUS bread, thank you!!!
I loved the crunchy seeds on top! Will make this again.
I made this last night and it was great! When I mashed the potatoes the mash was really sweet so I cut the sugar in half and it is sweet enough. Thank you for sharing the recipe 🙂
Would I need to change the ingredient ratios to substitute butternut squash for the sweet tators? I still have a couple dozen of them from my garden.
Thanks
Hi Stephen! Great question—I have a butternut squash in my pantry right now and I’m intrigued to try it this weekend. If I do, I will report back!
In the meantime, I anticipate the butternut squash will have a higher moisture content than sweet potatoes. My first thought was to decrease the buttermilk, but the more I think about it I would instead leave the ratios the same and add a few tablespoons of flour as needed. I would make the batter as directed, and if it looks and feels too loose I would add a couple tablespoons of flour (and no more than 3 or 4 tablespoons). It should be pretty thick (thicker than banana bread batter), the video and step shots will be a good reference for showing the thickness of the batter.
I hope that helps, I’d love to hear how it goes!
OMG! I just made this bread and cannot be happier, as well as my kids! It turned out so well and I used a local heirloom course salt for the topping and it just elevated it! Thank you so much for this incredibly yummy recipe! My kids are asking to have it for breakfast tomorrow!
Yay! Hi Valerie! I am SO happy to hear you and your kids loved this bread. And that local salt sounds amazing! Always a good day when you can sneak some veggies into a tasty bread 😉
can I omit buttermilk for plain milk instead. I will make this !
Absolutely, I recommend adding a teaspoon of vinegar to the 1/3 cup of milk and letting it rest for 5 minutes before using it in the recipe. This will essentially create buttermilk. I hope that helps!
This is incredible! Beautifully moist and fluffy. Love the crumb. Rosemary is a nice touch too. We threw ourselves at it, a little while out of the oven and almost devoured the whole thing. I made a double batch, subbed some of the flour for oats, added some cinnamon and turmeric and also subbed the cranberries for sliced pear. Decadent.
Could i use purple sweet potatoes instead of the regular ones in this recipe?
Absolutely! Not sure how the color will change during baking, but the bread will work just fine with purple potatoes!