Sweet Potato Bread

There’s something so comforting to me about autumn baking. The dropping temperatures seem to drive me ever closer to the warmth of the oven. My senses are ignited by the heady scents of cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice that fill the air. So, let’s ready those ovens and get baking.

I like to start by roasting the sweet potato to release its full flavor. You can do this ahead of time and refrigerate the whole sweet potato overnight or you can do this the day of. In any case, start by preheating your oven to 300° F. Gently cleanse a medium-sized sweet potato – you want one large enough for 1 cup of mashed sweet potato – and leave damp. Wrap tightly in aluminum foil and use a second piece of foil as a “boat” of sorts to prevent any leaking as the sweet potato cooks. Bake for about an hour. If you want to save yourself some work, you can definitely substitute canned sweet potato instead.

I would definitely recommend removing your eggs and milk from the refrigerator when you put the sweet potato in the oven. This will allow them to come to room temperature and your final product will be all the better for it. Once the sweet potato has finished roasting you can remove it from the oven and set it aside to cool while you prep the other ingredients. Set the oven to 350° F.

Combine the flour, baking soda, salt, sugar, and spices in a bowl and set aside. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs thoroughly before adding in your oil, milk/water, maple syrup, vanilla extract, and raisins. Peel and mash the sweet potato, then whisk into your bowl of wet ingredients. Ready your bread pan (mine is 8.5 inches by 4.5 inches but a 9 by 5 inch pan will work equally well) by lining with parchment paper. I’ve found that I don’t usually need to grease parchment paper, but do so if you’d like. Gradually add the dry ingredients to your wet ingredients and whisk until you form a thick batter.

Using a rubber spatula, scrape the batter into the baking pan and place on the middle rack of the oven. Bake for 50 minutes to an hour. Allow the bread to cool for at least 30 minutes in the pan before you cut or remove it. Cutting too early releases the moisture and removing baked goods from a pan before they’ve cooled often results in them crumbling to some degree.

Although it’s not in this recipe, I think next time I’ll soak the raisins in bourbon just to add more depth to the flavor. You can also experiment with the spices based on your own personal taste. Thank you so much for reading another one of my posts. Enjoy!