Sweet Potato & Cinnamon Breakfast Bread {Vegan}

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I’ve been in a bit of a breakfast rut lately. I usually end up doing the ultimate lazy breakfast of a halved banana sandwiched together with peanut butter and sprinkled with cinnamon (#onbrand). It’s partially to do with the weather, of course. London can’t decide if it’s sunny or grey right now so I’m often thrown by what to have. It’s also partially because I’ve been trying to eat vegan meals for breakfast & lunch now (for environmental reasons) and am so uninspired.

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A barely sweet breakfast muffin or quick-bread is what I’ve really wanted. Something with enough integrity to be toast-able but still cakey and soft. I wanted to be able to slather it with nut butter and fruit and call it breakfast without feeling crushed by a sugar low a few hours later. This is what I ended up making – a cinnamon-kissed toasting loaf made with wholemeal flour (gonna keep reminding everyone about fibre. Get your fibre guys, 30g a day) and walnuts and pumpkin seeds nestled into the batter.

I used yacon syrup to sweeten the loaf a bit – it’s full of oligosaccharides, sweet carbohydrate molecules which are prebiotics. They feed the bacteria in your gut (this sounds like it could be a bad thing but it’s a good thing). Don’t worry if you don’t have any, it’s not vital to the recipe so you can use cane sugar or maple syrup instead! I’ve also been kind of going off coconut oil ever since I read my friend Laura’s article about it on Huffpost and learned about the British Nutrition Foundation’s report on it. Turns out that yeah saturated fat is still bad for us, guys. Like all other saturated fats we should be mindful of our intake of them and coconut oil is no exception. Also turns out that loads of vegetable oil-based spreads still use dairy products in them. *sigh*.  Luckily flora has just come out with a new freedom spread which is completely dairy free so is suitable for my breakfast baking exploits! Now I’m not saying that anyone should go crazy eating vegetable oil spreads either – they’re still fat – but switching from butter to a dairy free alternative like this for breakfast is so much better for the environment. Aaaaand as it’s World Environment Day maybe you should try going dairy free for the day and try out this sweet potato loaf for breakfast!

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Sweet Potato & Cinnamon Breakfast Bread {Vegan}

Sweet Potato & Cinnamon Breakfast Bread {Vegan} Serves: 12 slices
4.37 from 11 votes
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Course: Breakfast

Ingredients

  • 50 g (1/4 cup) Flora Freedom spread
  • 60 ml (1/4 cup) yacon syrup, maple syrup or cane sugar
  • ~150g , (2/3 cup) cooked sweet potato (see notes)
  • 3/4 cup water or non-dairy milk
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • (1 1/2 cups) wholemeal flour
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • handful of walnuts and pumpkin seeds , (plus extra for the top)

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 180 C (350 F) and line a 2lb loaf pan with baking paper.
  • In a mixing bowl cream together the spread and syrup until smooth.
  • Mash the cooked sweet potato in a separate bowl or blend it until smooth in a food processor. Add that to the mixing bowl and stir it in followed by the water and cinnamon.
  • Add the baking powder, flour, salt, walnuts and pumpkin seeds - stir until just combined.
  • Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan and sprinkle with extra walnuts and pumpkin seeds. Bake for 40-50 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Notes

- for the cooked sweet potato I pricked a sweet potato all over with a fork and microwaved it for 5 minutes to cook it.
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Tried this recipe?Let me know how it went! Mention @izyhossack or tag #topwithcinnamon!

Thanks to Flora for sponsoring this post and supporting World Environment Day!

26 thoughts on “Sweet Potato & Cinnamon Breakfast Bread {Vegan}”

  1. You’ve inspired me to try the dairy-free thing for a day. This recipe sounds fantastic!

  2. Hey there’s nothing wrong with peanut-butter-banana sandwiches for breakfast. Especially when they’re topped with cinnamon (no pun intended) 😉 But this breakfast bread looks absolutely incredible, and seems like a perfect way to mix things up! 😀

  3. Hi Izy! This looks so tempting ?
    I was wondering what you would eat this with and how strong the sweet potato is. I wanted to make it for brunch with friends who aren’t necessarily on a healthy trip. The alternative would be your amazing lemon and pistachio cakes ?

    • It’s not a strong sweet potato flavour – it’s there more for sweetness and a soft texture! It’s super good toasted with nut butter and jam 🙂

  4. No, please, don’t tell me those things about coconut oil :'( What are we supposed to use for high temperature cooking? #sadness

  5. The whole coconut oil obsession is so overstated isn’t it?! Especially based on the current science. Great recipe lovely!

  6. What an interesting recipe. Never knew you could make bread out of it. Certainly looks very healthy. With a touch of Cinnamon it always will be of course.

    Thanks for the coconut oil tip. I was kind of coming to the same conclusion myself. This Flora spread looks like a good alternative. They certainly have a very cool web site.

  7. Also, re: coconut oil – it has to be sustainable, not farmed on land that was old growth forest by exploited people who are reacting to a food fad in the West. For high heat cooking use good old peanut /groundnut oil or corn oil.

    • You could use any other dairy-free spread or softened butter (if you are okay with consuming dairy)

  8. Currently stuck in a breakfast rut and I tend to switch between avo on rye or soaked oats. Going to be giving this a go in the next couple of weeks as it looks SOOOO good. Can I ask, what is the spread you are using in your pictures? L x

    • Good good, hope you like it! The spread in the pictures is just some of the flora freedom mixed with a bit of cinnamon!

  9. I tried this and it was delish. I even managed to find YACON syrup at my local health food store. I used organic grass fed butter instead of the spread and it turned out very nicely.

  10. Usually I just drool over your seriously amazing recipes, but I actually had a sweet potato that I’ve been wondering what to do with so I finally attempted to make this beauty (Yay!!). It turned out surprisingly delicious considering my lack of baking talent and the fact that I couldn’t not for the life of me figure out what to do with the water / milk & cinnamon. Yum!

  11. It’s difficult to get myself to use the oven or bake anything when making breakfast but this seems too irresistible. Thanks for sharing this simple recipe.

  12. I love the approach your taking at balancing nutrition and yumminess. This breakfast bread sounds amazing and I love that it’s something to feel good about eating at the same time. Thanks for sharing this one Izy!

  13. Dairy-free is the way to go. I went with greek yogurt instead of the spread and it worked great. Thanks for sharing!

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