Happiness Bread
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Happiness Bread is a soft savoury gluten-free and grain-free bread, packed with sweet potato, nuts and seeds with the golden scent of turmeric which is perfect for kick-starting your day.
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Having a loaf of Happiness Bread on stand by during the week means that breakfast time is a doddle. I think sorting out breakfast for the week is one of the most important meal-prepping tasks you can do. For the mornings when the alarm doesn’t go off and you are running late for the school run you definitely need a grab-and-go breakfast which is protein packed, satisfying and full of delicious healthy ingredients. And who doesn’t need a dose of happy in the mornings?
Why you'll love this recipe
- Made from sweet potato, coconut flour and a smattering of tapioca flour which makes it a grain-free, paleo bread.
- It has a lovely soft moist texture so it’s easy to eat and gentle on your digestion.
- This is a savoury sweet potato bread so you can pair it really well with bacon and eggs in the morning or to accompany soup or salad for lunch.
- Turmeric is the golden ingredient. It’s incredibly good for you and also creates a beautiful sunny colour to your loaf.
Please note Happiness Bread is a lot softer and more cakey than your regular sandwich loaf so if you want a bread which is a bit more traditional then have a look at this Gluten-Free Irish Soda Bread recipe which is so easy and also vegan (but not grain-free!).
Ingredients
- Mashed sweet potato – loads of tips for preparing below.
- Eggs – medium
- Cashew butter – ever making your own Cashew Butter?
- Coconut oil – you can use unrefined which is more economical.
- Coconut flour – gives a delicious coconutty taste.
- Tapioca flour – used to give the loaf a lovely crust.
- Nuts – walnuts and flaked almonds are used here. Used whole for lovely texture. You can sub for any nuts. Pecans are delicious here too.
- Seeds – we’re going crazy with chia, pumpkin, sunflower, sesame and flax for loads of protein power, taste and texture.
- Ground Turmeric – 1 whole tablespoon. Treating ourselves – it’s an antioxidant and has strong anti-inflammatory effects. It’s a great ingredient as you don’t need a lot of it for it to be beneficial.
- Baking powder - for rise and tenderness.
- Salt – I prefer to use kosher salt as it is a more gentle salt which supports the flavour of all the ingredients.
More gluten-free sweet potato recipes
- Gluten-Free Sweet Potato Cake
- Sweet Potato Chocolate Truffle Torte – this recipe is an amazing dessert and has no refined sugar!
How do you make Happiness Bread?
Detailed method in the recipe card below
- Beat the mashed sweet potatoes, eggs, cashew butter and cooled coconut oil together in a large bowl or food mixer.
- Combine all the other ingredients in a separate bowl (saving some of the nuts and seeds for scattering over the top) and then mix into the wet ingredients.
- Pour into a lined and greased 2lb loaf tin. Scatter over some nuts and seeds then bake at 180°C / 160°C fan / gas mark 4 for 50 minutes.
Sweet potato tip
I do not recommend peeling, cubing and boiling the sweet potato to prepare it for this recipe. You lose a lot of the sweet flavour and nutrients which leaches out into the water. Instead I urge you to go the extra step of cooking your sweet potato in their skins as follows:
Two ways to prepare the sweet potato:
1. Oven Baked
- Wrap the sweet potatoes individually in aluminium foil and place in a large roasting tin.
- Bake at 180°C / 160°C fan / gas mark 4 for between 1-1½ hours, depending on how big the potato is.
- Test for doneness by pressing lightly into the potato through the foil. It should feel very soft beneath your finger.
- Leave the potatoes to cool a little then unwrap the foil and peel away the skin of the potatoes which will come away very easily.
- Mash the flesh with a fork and refrigerate until needed.
2. Instant Pot
- Pour 250ml water into your Instant Pot insert.
- Place a silicone sling or trivet into the bottom of the insert.
- Arrange unpeeled whole sweet potatoes onto the silicone sling in a single layer.
- Click the lid into place, set the valve to sealed, press Pressure Cook and set the timer for 15 minutes. (Bear in mind it takes about 5-8 minutes for the pot to come to pressure).
- Once the timer goes off you can quick release the pressure from your pot. Once the steam has gone, open the Instant Pot and turn off.
Happiness Bread FAQs
How can you store it? This is a very moist bread. It is best kept in an airtight tin or in the fridge.
How long does it keep for? It keeps for up to 3 days out of the fridge and up to 5 days in the fridge.
Can you freeze it? Yes, wrap well and it keeps for up to 2 months in the freezer. I recommend freezing in slices so you can pull them out the night before ready for the next day.
What can you eat Happiness Bread with?
- Delicious just slathered with butter.
- Even better with extra nut butter on top.
- Piled high with bacon or turkey and avocado for a substantial meal.
- Served with eggs, anyway you fancy.
- To accompany your favourite soup (which I always think needs a bit of bread on hand)
Variations on the recipe
- Happy Pumpkin Bread - To avoid the effort of preparing the sweet potato you can make this bread with tinned pumpkin.
- Happy Banana Bread – Swap out the sweet potato for banana! This bread will be a lot sweeter and takes it more into the realm of cake rather than bread, but hey, who ever said that was a problem!!
Since introducing this bread to your morning routine I guarantee it will make you very happy. Having an easy and filling breakfast is worth its weight in gold.
Another lovely way of eating Sweet Potato in the mornings is with these Sweet Potato & Bacon Rosti. A firm favourite and incredibly popular recipe. Great for meal prepping too!
I urge you to give this Happiness Bread a try. If you do then please leave a comment below and give the recipe a rating which helps others find the recipe on Google. If you then go on to use this recipe as a launch pad for your own culinary creation then I’d also love it if you’d share it and tag me on Instagram. It is so lovely for me to see your versions and variations of my recipes.
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Happiness Bread
Ingredients
- 400 g cooked sweet potato* - about 3
- 4 eggs - medium
- 140 g cashew butter
- 60 g coconut oil - melted to liquid state
- 75 g coconut flour
- 30 g tapioca flour
- 75 g walnut halves
- 30 g chia seeds
- 25 g flaked almonds
- 25 g pumpkin seeds
- 20 g sunflower seeds
- 20 g sesame seeds
- 15 g ground flaxseed
- 1 tablespoon ground turmeric
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ¾ teaspoon sea salt
Instructions
- Pre-heat oven to 180°C / 160°C fan / gas mark 4 and line and grease a 2lb loaf tin.
- Beat the sweet potato, eggs, cashew butter and coconut oil in a large mixing bowl or food mixer.
- Reserve a few of the nuts and seeds for sprinkling on the top of the loaf.
- Combine the coconut flour, tapioca flour, the rest of the nuts and seeds, turmeric, baking powder and salt in a separate bowl.
- Tip the dry ingredients into the sweet potato mixture and beat until well combined.
- Pour into the loaf tin, smooth down the top and scatter over the reserved nuts and seeds.
- Bake for 50-55 minutes or until an inserted cocktail stick comes out clean.
Notes
- To cook in the oven wrap each potato in aluminium foil and bake for 1-1 ½ hours (depending on the size of the potato). Leave to cool then unwrap from the foil, peel away the skins and mash the flesh with a fork.
- To cook in the Instant Pot, pour in 250ml of water into the Instant Pot insert. Set over a trivet and place the whole sweet potatoes in a single layer. Pressure cook for 15 minutes and then quick release after 5 minutes. Peel the sweet potatoes away from their skins and mash with a fork.
do you think it would work if I tried to sub the coconut flour for potato flour or flax seed flour or rice flour and adding 1/4 tsp xanthan gum?
It's quite a sticky loaf so the coconut flour works well in absorbing the moisture. I don't recommend swapping the coconut flour for potato flour or flax seed which would add more moisture or even adding xanthan gum. But you could swap for rice flour, the loaf will be stickier than the version with the coconut flour but it's the better substitute as it does absorb liquid well. I would recommend resting the batter for 20 minutes if you are using rice flour and perhaps to use 10% more.
Hi , can you tell me what can I use instead of sweet rice flour as I cannot find it where I live. I started following you because I am new to gluten free recipes but when I followed the recipe of the gluten free Christmas cake I succeed in doing it. It was my first attempt and it came really good. Thanks a lot.❤️
Which recipe do you want to use it with as this Happiness Bread doesn't have sweet rice flour. Cassava flour, defatted almond flour and gram flour (chickpea flour) can often be good alternatives but it really depends on the recipe as all the flours have slightly different roles.
Hi Georgina, I thought your recipe sounded delicious, but I didn't have exactly the ingredients in my larder so I made sensible substitutes. Cashews instead of walnuts, whizzed up desiccated coconut instead of flour. Olive oil and butter instead of coconut oil etc.
But it was the same recipe in principle.
And oh my! It's just amazing. I'm never going to be without a loaf in my freezer. I sliced it thinly so I can take out a slice and toast it whenever I want.
Our daughter is coming over to Sweden next week and she's going to love it.
Thank you so much for all the work and effort you put in to provide good substitutes for us who are gluten intolerant. You've never failed me yet. All power to your elbow you star!
Could I substitute cashew butter with almond butter? Tnxx
Yes you can!
Could I use normal wheat flour?
Hi Claudine, yes you should be able to swap out the coconut flour and tapioca flour for the same amount of wheat flour. Please note that I haven't tried it though.
Made this bread this morning and it is delicious. Despite being a classically trained french pastry chef I have been reluctant to try out flours I’m not familiar with. This bread is perfect. Soft texture and not too dense with all those lovely seed and nuts! It’s perfectly sweet (I used pumpkin!) and tastes marvelous as avocado toast. 5 stars for a healthy bread with no sweeteners, dairy or gluten. This bread does invoke happiness for me! Thank you for sharing this beautiful bread with others!
Hi Sarah, thank you so much for your feedback. It's lovely to hear you had great success with the recipe - I love it as avocado toast too!
Hello from Vancouver Island Canada, just wondering if you mean an actual sweet potato or yam? what color is the inside of the potato? So many here get them wrong.... thanks
Sharon
Hi Sharon, the sweet potato used for this recipe are orange.
Ooh la la. Just the slice I’m looking for right about this second =D
Is the nutrition information for 1 slice or entire bread? I think it’s got the loaf but just want to verify. Thank you
It's per slice. But you know, you can easily eek out the bread into 12 slices which will cut down the calories a bit. It's a rich tasting loaf full of protein and good fats, hence the high calorie content.
Can’t wait to make this but wondering if it is freezable as I would like to make and chop slices to have when needed
Many thanks can’t wait to make and try this amazing recipe
Hi Alice, yes you can freeze it no problem. Wrap up well and it will be fine.
Hello, thank you for the recipe. Is there a good substitute for the eggs?
Hi Julie! I'm not sure that for this recipe I would suggest a substitute for the eggs, simply because the recipe really does rely on them. I have a great vegan Irish Soda Bread recipe that doesn't have any eggs if that might be of interest.
You can use chia or flax “eggs” and omit that ingredient in the bread. EACH “egg” = 1T Chia or ground Flax seeds to 3T water. Let sit until thickened-about 15 mins. Refrigeration speeds this up, if needed. I bake with these “eggs” all the time and it works beautifully.
Thanks for sharing your story . Love the idea of this bread (happiness) but also like that it uses tumeric as it is so good for you and hard to get into food every day. A thick slice of bread is usually part of European diet ! I have difficulty getting tapioca flour and tried to grind the pearl type but it was too gritty . I am thinking I will replace with gram flour and wondering if you have any comment on this ? Worth a try maybe ?
Thanks again
Mar
I agree about the turmeric - I now use it a lot and love the colour it imparts. By all means try replacing with gram flour - I haven't tried it but I'm sure it would work fine. In the past I have omitted the tapioca flour myself and made up the quantity by using more coconut flour or I have used almond flour instead of the tapioca. Let me know how gram flour goes. (I should note that by using gram flour it is no longer a paleo bread but if that is not a requirement for you then don't worry).
well am not sure about the grams,,,I usually use cups
Sorry Tina, I'm a UK based blogger and learnt to bake using grams and am a great advocate of this method (especially when using digital scales) as it's ultra reliable and accurate. I find converting cups to grams is easier than the other way round but it's always a bit of trial and error when you're converting recipes, otherwise I would add the cups conversions here.
I use a kitchen scale for recipes that call for grams
I made this and loved it. I used raw sweet potato. Worked wonderful for texture/density but bland on sweetness so I just spread it with some honey when eating it. I also toasted it first as leaving it at air temp is too hot at the moment & in the fridge is to firm. I think the sweetness must come from the roasting if using the recipe you have. That may explain the bland-ness of my loaf?
Hi Caz, I'm happy you enjoyed the recipe. There isn't really any sweetness in this bread, I use it as more of a savoury option as you would regular bread. You are right that when sweet potato is roasted it encourages the natural sugars so will taste a little sweeter.
i want to make this bread but I need to convert for US measurements. Can you help me out???????
Hi Beth, I'm so sorry but I don't work in US measurements. This recipe is incredibly forgiving though so I think if you were to use a weight convertor like the one here at Traditional Oven which I use when converting from cups to grams then I think you would have no trouble at all with a successful recipe.
Hi
This recipe looks great and really want to try, but when is the tapioca flour to be added?
Hi Aimee. The tapioca flour is to be added at the same time as the coconut flour. Sorry, the recipe is now amended. Thank you!
is the cashew butter necessary? Never had it, and I'm imagining a strong cashew taste
Don't worry there is not a strong cashew taste. I used cashew butter rather than any other nut as I find the flavour much blander than say almond butter so it doesn't take over. The cashew butter helps to give the bread structure, I wouldn't recommend leaving it out. By all means substitute with another nut butter if you prefer.