Honey - Sweet Potato (Or Pumpkin) Bread

Name: Honey - Sweet Potato (Or Pumpkin) Bread
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 1 h 25 min
Total time: 1 h 40 min
Yield: 2 loaves
Ingredients: 1 cup honey; 1/2 cup vegetable oil (I used a light olive); 2 extra large eggs; 1 1/2 cups sweet potatoes or 1 1/2 cups pumpkin puree; 2 cups all-purpose flour; 1/2 cup sugar; 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda; 1/4 teaspoon salt; 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon; 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg; 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves; 1/3 cup buttermilk; 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar; 1 teaspoon vanilla extract; 3/4 cup chopped toasted walnuts (optional) or 3/4 cup pecans (optional); 1/2 cup golden raisin (optional)

Submitted by evelynathens

"This delicious quick bread is just perfect with a cup of tea or coffee. Spicy, moist, not too sweet, great texture. Made up with some of the ingredients required for the challenging RSC 2004 Contest!"

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photo by Rita1652

Ready In:: 1hr 40mins
Ingredients:: 16
Yields:: 2 loaves

ingredients

1 cup honey
¹⁄₂ cup vegetable oil (I used a light olive)
2 extra large eggs
1 ¹⁄₂ cups sweet potatoes or 1 1/2 cups pumpkin puree
2 cups all-purpose flour
¹⁄₂ cup sugar
1 ¹⁄₂ teaspoons baking soda
¹⁄₄ teaspoon salt
³⁄₄ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¹⁄₂ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¹⁄₄ teaspoon ground cloves
¹⁄₃ cup buttermilk
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
³⁄₄ cup chopped toasted walnuts (optional) or 3/4 cup pecans (optional)
¹⁄₂ cup golden raisin (optional)

directions

Preheat oven to 375F; butter and flour two 9x5-inch loaf pans.
In a large bowl, whisk together oil, honey (if you measure out the oil first, and then put honey in the oiled measuring cup, the honey will come out easier) eggs and sweet potato puree until creamy.
In a small bowl, combine both flours, sugar, baking soda, salt and spices.
In a measuring cup, combine buttermilk, balsamic vinegar and vanilla extract.
Fold dry ingredients into sweet potato mixture, alternating with buttermilk; mix until just combined; if using pecans and/or raisins, toss them with 1 tblsp flour and fold them into the batter quickly; scrape batter into prepared loaf pans and bake for about 60 minutes, or until breads test done when toothpick is inserted into centre and comes out clean; if bread appears to be browning too quickly, tent loosely with some foil and continue baking (I did this about 1/2 an hour into baking).
Cool in pan for 10 minutes before removing.
Note: Like most quick breads (and cakes), this slices up best a day after baking- I couldn't wait!

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Reviews

Excellent recipe. This is sooo tasty! The wonderful scent of this bread baking had me salivating - you can really get a strong sense of the balsamic vinegar in this. This has a gingerbread-like quality and was very moist and tender. Note: I checked mine at the 1 hour point and felt they were ready then. I did use the optional golden raisins, which I think really added a nice juiciness to the bread.

HeatherFeather
I too used olive oil. It could have used more sweetner. The cooking time was 40 minutes not 75-85 minutes. I did use 2 pans like directed but putting all the dough in 1 would have been fine. I think the rye flour could have been cut down it added a heavieness to it. I did heat the sweet potato (skin`s good for you)and all in the micro and placed in the food processor till smooth then followed with sugar, oil, then eggs.Then adding dry ingredients alternating with the buttermilk,vinegar and vanilla. Stirred in dried sour cherries. I think with some tweeking this can be great.

Rita1652
This recipe was easy to make, but the amount of sweet potato should of been a measured amount, not 1 large...what I think is large may be small to another person. I did not find mine that moist and the amount of sweet potato could be the problem. I used bucketwheat flour instead of rye flour, used walnuts and left off the raisins. The texture was nice and fine.I found that 2 loaf pans made the loaves too small but I think 1 loaf pan could of been too large a loaf, its really hard to tell. Maybe this should of been muffins, and baked for a much shorter time. This then could keep the batter from browning/burning. I baked my loaves for 60 minutes and this was too much. The browning of the loaves, actually burnt. Maybe the temperature was a bit too high for something that has honey in it and browns fast. I could not taste the walnuts, something, maybe a spice like cloves or nutmeg were too strong. If I make this recipe again, I would leave off the cloves & nutmeg and make it into muffins, baking at maybe 350 degF.and the amount of baking time I would have to watch very carefully.

Shar-on

Tweaks

This recipe was easy to make, but the amount of sweet potato should of been a measured amount, not 1 large...what I think is large may be small to another person. I did not find mine that moist and the amount of sweet potato could be the problem. I used bucketwheat flour instead of rye flour, used walnuts and left off the raisins. The texture was nice and fine.I found that 2 loaf pans made the loaves too small but I think 1 loaf pan could of been too large a loaf, its really hard to tell. Maybe this should of been muffins, and baked for a much shorter time. This then could keep the batter from browning/burning. I baked my loaves for 60 minutes and this was too much. The browning of the loaves, actually burnt. Maybe the temperature was a bit too high for something that has honey in it and browns fast. I could not taste the walnuts, something, maybe a spice like cloves or nutmeg were too strong. If I make this recipe again, I would leave off the cloves & nutmeg and make it into muffins, baking at maybe 350 degF.and the amount of baking time I would have to watch very carefully.

Shar-on