Entirely Adequate

True confession: I have never liked sweet potato casserole, that impostor of a side dish that shows up on the table every year at Thanksgiving. It always seemed more fitting as a dessert, but it in no way could compare to the pecan, egg custard or chocolate pie that sat in the kitchen waiting for the turkey to be cleared.

Sweet potatoes are put to much better use in pies; sweet potato pie, after all, tastes astoundingly like pumpkin pie.

I got a couple of sweet potatoes during the first week of the winter CSA that I’m splitting with Mrs Dragon over at Mrs Dragon’s Den. I was in the mood for something sweet and pumpkiny, but not a lot of it, so I took out Small Batch Baking, a cookbook that offers recipes for small batches of baked goods, including cookies, breads, muffins and even cakes. It’s a handy cookbook for a two-person household; the recipes don’t always result in world-class baked goods, but they’re pretty good if you just want a couple of cookies each or need to cure a cupcake craving without ending up with a dozen.

There I found a recipe for Sweet Potato Tea Bread, which promised me one small loaf that would feed two or three people (it fed two people 2.5 times, but we tend to eat small portions). I had way more mashed sweet potatoes than I needed to make one loaf, so I froze a few pre-measured portions to make more bread later.

It was an easy recipe to make; I think I only got two bowls dirty and I didn’t even have to break out the mixer. My husband marveled that it tasted just like pumpkin bread. Or at least what he thought pumpkin bread would taste like, presuming he ever ate any.

Sweet Potato Tea Bread

Unsalted butter, at room temperature, for greasing the pan
½ cup all-purpose flour, plus more for flouring the pan
¼ teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
¼ cup cold mashed sweet potato (about 1 small sweet potato baked, peeled and mashed)
¼ cup sugar
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon buttermilk
½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 medium egg

1. Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees. Lightly butter and flour a petite loaf pan (2-cup capacity, about 5 by 3 inches).
2. Place the flour, baking soda, salt and pumpkin pie spice in a mixing bowl and whisk to blend.
3. Place the sweet potatoes, sugar, oil, buttermilk, vanilla and egg in a small bowl and whisk to blend.
4. Add the sweet potato mixture to the flour mixture and stir just the dry ingredients are just moistened.
5. Spoon batter into the prepared pan and bake 26-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
6. Cool bread in pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes, then remove the bread from the pan and cool completely. Serve warm or at room temperature.