Cinnamon and spice sweet potato bread

Bake those sweet potatoes languishing in your pantry into a spicy moist quick bread. It's a perfect recipe for the first crisp fall weekend.

I keep finding all these great looking recipes on Pinterest and half the time they lead me back to Averie's blog. Her picture of this sweet potato bread sucked me into this recipe and, because I had several sweet potatoes starting to take root (literally) in my kitchen because I wasn't using them fast enough, this seemed like a good recipe to try so I could use up the sweet potatoes before they started to turn my kitchen into a garden.

Mine didn't come out quite as yummy-looking as hers but I still thought this turned out well. The texture was soft and moist like a good quick bread and this was an easy recipe to make. My only issue is there were so many spices that I think I had a hard time tasting the sweet potato.

I've had that issue before with sweet potato baked goods so I don't think it's the recipe but just the nature of the sweet potato; its flavor is easy to overpower. This reminded me more of carrot bread. I don't generally taste a strong carrot flavor in carrot cake for instance, but I like it just the same. As with all moist cakes and quick breads, don't slice these until you're ready to serve and eat it or the ends will easily dry out unless they're well wrapped.

Cinnamon and spice sweet potato bread
From Averie Cooks

About 1-1/2 cups cooked, mashed sweet potatoes (2 medium or 1 very large), cooled
2 large eggs
1/2 cup canola or vegetable oil
1/4 cup buttermilk (or yogurt, Greek yogurt, or sour cream)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1-1/4 cups granulated sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
Pinch salt, optional and to taste

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray one 9- by 5-inch loaf pan with floured cooking spray or grease and flour the pan; set aside.

2. To the sweet potatoes, add the eggs, oil, buttermilk, vanilla and whisk until combined; set aside.

3. 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. Stir and fold with a gentle hand as to not overmix and overdevelop the gluten, which results in tougher bread.

4. Turn batter out into prepared pan, smoothing the top lightly with a spatula. Bake for 60 to 70 minutes, 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.

5. Allow bread to cool in pan for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

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