Growing up in New Zealand meant that kumaras or sweet potato were part of my childhood memories. I adore them – especially roasted in coconut oil yet almost as good in cakes and bread. Sweet potatoes are an incredibly ancient crop and I have discovered super easy to grow. Kumaras were always the purple variety – my personal favourite – and are not always easy to find over here in Australia but the golden sweet potatoes are and they have certainly become a favourite in our household.
They became even more of a favourite after we worked out that we could grow them in a cool temperate climate. Yep that’s right they are easily grown from the cutting taken in autumn – take a cutting around 20cm, cut just below the node, remove half of the leaves and put into a good quality potting mix and keep moist. They are a warm climate plant so they will need to be kept either inside or in a hothouse over winter. Plant them out in spring when any concern of frost has passed. Next year I am thinking of growing them up a trellis to save a little space however, in the past they have made great ground cover when grown with capsicum and eggplant.
This simple recipe came out of the need to make bread with what we had in the house because of self isolation. It makes a great breakfast loaf and it ticks all my boxes: gluten, dairy, refined sugar free! It is an amazing combination of flavours spiced up with cinnamon and nutmeg and makes for a super start to your day or a mid morning healthy snack.
Ingredients
- 3 eggs
- 1/3 cup (110g) of unprocessed honey
- 1/2 cup (125 ml) of olive oil or cocount oil
- 2 cups (200 g) of almond meal
- 60g of buckwheat flour
- 2 tabl of chia seeds
- 2 tspn of cinnamon
- 1 tspn of nutmeg
- 1/2 tspn of dried ginger
- 1 tspn of vanilla essence or half a vanilla pod scraped
- 1 tspn of bicarbonate soda
- a pinch of unrefined salt
- juice of 1/2 lemon
- zest of 1/2 lemon
- 1/2 cup (45g) of nuts – I used walnuts. Dried fruit could also be used like prunes
- 300 g of sweet potato, cooked and mashed
Method
- Preheat oven to 160 C fan forced.
- Liberally oil a 20cm by 10cm loaf tin.
- Place the eggs, honey, oil, almond meal, buckwheat flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, bicarbonate soda, salt, lemon juice and zest into a high speed blender.
- Stir first then process on high until everything is well combined and it has become a thick paste.
- Pour into a bowl and add chia seeds. Let it rest for 2o minutes.
- Now add nuts and sweet potato until just combined – don’t over mix it.
- Spoon it into the loaf tin and tap the tin so the mixture is nice and even.
- Bake for 45 – 50minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
- Store in the fridge – if it lasts that long!
- Also great to freeze – put it in an airtight container.
