Sweet Potato Cranberry Bread

If you’re looking for a yummy, simple, from scratch bread recipe you can make for the holidays, look no further. This Sweet Potato Cranberry Bread is perfect. And the best part, it’s made from ingredients you probably already have in your kitchen!

Living in this cabin has got me all crazy about cooking more. And because the store is not really that close by, I love making recipes out of what I just happen to have on hand. This Saturday afternoon, I was in the mood for some homemade bread…so this Sweet Potato Cranberry bread was born.

I’ve had this giant sweet potato (it’s actually a yam, I just think sweet potato sounds better) since Thanksgiving. It was definitely time to put it into something to eat soon. Other than some dried cranberries (also leftover from Thanksgiving), I had pretty basic pantry items on hand. So I played around on google, made some modifications based on what I had and came up with this:

Sweet Potato Cranberry Bread Ingredients

Sweet Potato Cranberry Bread Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 and spray a loaf pan with oil.
2. Peel sweet potato and cut into 1″ chunks. Add to a medium pot and top with water. Bring to a boil and boil until soft, 15-20 minutes. Use a masher or hand mixer to mash until smooth.
3. Add mashed sweet potatoes, eggs and Greek yogurt to a medium bowl. Stir until well combined.
4. Add flour, sugar, spices and salt to a large bowl and stir until well combined. Fold in wet ingredients and mix until well combined. Stir in dried cranberries, but don’t over-mix.
5. Bake 60-70 minutes, until edges are crispy and something like a toothpick can make it to the center of the loaf and come out clean.

Note: My cabin is at 6200′ altitude, so I actually baked at 365 for 75 minutes.

Sweet Potato Cranberry Bread Nutrition

When you cut this loaf into 10 pieces, it has about 200 calories, 3g protein, 2g fiber, 25g sugar. It’s not the most nutritionally superior cake/bread I’ve ever made. I think the beauty of this recipe is that it’s made with such simple pantry ingredients. Regular white flour and table sugar aren’t my favorite. But you know what, they are things most of us have on hand any-given-Saturday. Which mean you can just whip this recipe up just about anytime you want.

And while it’s not a perfectly-unprocessed recipe, it is still better than your average “fruit cake” for a few reasons. The vegetable oil was replaced by the mashed sweet potato. And because the sweet potato contains natural sugar, we also get away with using less table sugar. Those simple swaps deliver a less fatty treat with a teeny but more fiber. It’s not a nutritional, unprocessed miracle. But it is plant forward, made from scratch and it is delicious! And at the very least, it will make your house smell amazing while it bakes!