THIS BREAD!!! It's worth the work, and yes you will need a food scale. It requires time and the right ingredients, but for my real bakers/ enthusiasts who want that slice of something that feels like dessert to go with their coffee in the morning or that "something sweet" after a meal or you just love you some sweet potato pie and you love bread - here you go!
The sweet potato filling is used 4 ways: mixed into the dough, swirled into the dough, baked on top of the dough, and later stuffed in the dough once baked. Every component matters.
No time to waste; let's get into this recipe. When you see ***# after a step, this means: see the tips & troubleshooting section for why. I bake and test recipes multiple times before ever sharing them, so the probability and likelihood of successful replication based off of any recipe I ever share for free or paid is high asf.
And of course, if you're happy to have this recipe and feeling oh so moved, thank me with a coffee here!
I. Sweet Potato Filling
II. Brown Sugar Cinnamon Spice Mix for Filling
III. Brown Sugar Sweet Potato Stuffed Focaccia
IV. Tips & Troubleshooting
I. Spiced Sweet Potato Filling
This can be made the night before.
1 1/2 pounds sweet potatoes ( equivalent ~2 sweet potatoes)
1 tbsp unsalted butter
3 tbsp maple syrup
1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg (fresh even better)
Preheat the oven to 400F. Wash the dirt off the potatoes. Pierce the potatoes 5-7 times with a fork.
Place the potatoes on a piece of foil and in a baking dish.
Roast the sweet potatoes for an hour and a half or until completely fork tender.
Remove them from the oven. Once cool enough to handle, peel and blend the flesh of the sweet potato until smooth. (The amount of purée I wound up with was 365g if you care to know. This will vary based on the size of your sweet potatoes and any spots you may have to remove.)
Heat the 1 tbsp butter and the purée on the stove on medium-low heat. Stir regularly for 15 minutes with a spatula. (Heads up: The purée might stick a bit to the bottom of the pot after the first 5 minutes.) (***1) You might be tempted to skip this step, but don't.
Add the purée to a container or bowl and let cool. Season the cooled purée with the remaining ingredients: maple syrup, vanilla bean paste, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Refrigerate overnight.
KEY TIP: Keep in mind, you might taste it and believe it's too spiced for a filling, not spiced enough, or not sweet enough yet, but remember the bread gets folded THREE times with a brown sugar cinnamon spice mix and topped with it as well. It is also very hard for me to not make adjustments on the first try of a recipe haha so I do overstand.
Additional spices and aromatics that pair well: all-spice, clove, sage, citrus zest, ginger.... If you're someone who does not have a strong handle on pairings yet, but you're wanting to experiment, you can add seasonings and spices to softened butter to slather onto the bread afterward instead of possibly ruining the bread.
II. Brown Sugar Cinnamon Spice Mix
105g light brown sugar
6g ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp cardamom (1g; hard to weigh without a jewelry scale))
1/2 tsp salt (1g; hard to weight without a jewelry scale)
Mix all ingredients together. Use a fork to smash any larger clumps apart. Cover and set aside.
III. Focaccia Recipe (in grams)
Ingredients
625g bread flour + additional 30g flour reserved for finishing and kneading the dough
440g water
6g active dry yeast + 45g water + 1/4 tsp sugar
100g spiced sweet potato filling
6g sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla bean powder
2g turmeric (1 teaspoon)
1/4 tsp annatto/amarillo (optional; to deepen the color without coloring gels)
8g salt
avocado oil to top the the dough
2 tbsp butter, melted
Follow the steps for the Sweet Potato Filling- preferably the day before. Grease a 8, 9, or 10" baking dish with avocado oil (or any neutral oil) and set aside. I used an 8x10" Lloyd Pan.
Using a stand mixer with the bread hook, add the water to the mixing bowl. Top with half the bread flour. Mix on low for 30 seconds. Then, add the remaining flour. Mix for 1 minute on low or just until everything is combined. Use a spatula to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl to make sure everything gets incorporated. Mix for another 10 seconds.
Remove the hook and just place it in the bowl. Press plastic wrap directly on top of the surface of any dough to prevent drying. Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel or another piece of plastic wrap. Let this rest for 30 minutes. (***2)
Stir in 1/4 tsp sugar to 2 tbsp (45g) lukewarm water that doesn't exceed 105F (it'll feel warm to your knuckle). Stir in 6g active dry yeast. This is called blooming the yeast. After 10-15 minutes, it should froth to show life/ activity. If it doesn't, start this process over with a different envelope of yeast. (***3)
In a separate small bowl, mix together the remaining sugar, vanilla powder, turmeric, and annatto (optional). Break up any clumps. If you only have vanilla extract or paste, then add in the next step. (***4)
Uncover the flour-water mix. Add the bloomed yeast, 100g of the sweet potato filling, and the spiced sugar mix. Pulse the side knob about 10 times to slowly start to mix the dough, and avoid splatter. Then, mix the dough on 2 or low speed for 1 minute until the dough combines together.
Add in another 9g of bread flour and the salt. Now mix on medium for 2 more minutes until the dough is fully combined. (***5)
Sprinkle some flour on the counter. (~10 g) Add your dough onto the flour on the counter. Knead the dough. Add a dusting or light coating of flour on top and on your hands as you go. I use a french kneading technique. You can knead by gathering the edge in one spot and fold it into the center. Take the edge right next to that and fold it into the center. Repeat this until you make your way around the whole dough twice. Flip the dough over and shape. Whichever method you prefer, the key is to get the dough formed and shaped. Video here This process should only take another minute. Add the shaped dough to your greased pan. If you're making this all in one day, then let it rest covered on the counter for 40 minutes.
IF YOU WANT or NEED THIS TO BE A TWO DAY PROCESS, THIS IS WHERE YOU STOP FOR THE DAY. Add it to the greased pan. DRIZZLE A LITTLE BIT MORE OIL ON TOP OF THE DOUGH. LIGHTLY PRESS THE PLASTIC WRAP ON THE DOUGH. COVER THE DOUGH AND WRAP THE PAN COMPLETELY TO PROTECT THE DOUGH FROM DRYING OUT. ADD IT TO THE FRIDGE.
SAME DAY STEPS: Please read and understand this next part while the dough is proofing if you haven't read it yet. You will have 3 sessions of folding to do every 30 minutes. Each time you fold you'll add some of the brown sugar cinnamon mix. On the last fold (the third fold), you'll add sweet potato filling. Once the 40 minutes of proofing has happened, move on to your first fold.
Folding Process Starts Here:
Sprinkle an even thin layer of brown sugar cinnamon sprinkle mix over the entire top surface of the dough. Complete an envelope or letter fold with the dough. Imagine the dough/pan is divided into three. The top third, center, and bottom third.
Take your hands up under the bottom third of the dough. Stretch the bottom third away from the center almost like you're trying to lift it up out of the pan. Now, fold it over and onto the center area. Take your hands up under the top third. Stretch the top third away from the center and then fold it over and onto the center as well. Readjust the dough to fit in the pan. Watch here.
Cover the dough with plastic wrap. Let it proof for 30 minutes. Then repeat the folding process steps 2 and 3 again, and let it proof for another 30 minutes.
Now, grab the sweet potato filling for the third and a piping bag or an offset spatula. The exact steps I took are as follows: Place a Bismark tip inside a piping bag, snip off the end of the bag to let the tip fall in place. Fill the bag with the remainder sweet potato filling. (***6)
This next part may be easier to do on the counter. Oil the top of the dough, turn it oiled side down onto the counter or onto parchment paper. Zigzag half the filling across the dough. (~120g of filling) Spread evenly with an offset spatula (or a back of spoon). Sprinkle another even layer of brown sugar cinnamon mix on top.
Complete a letter fold. Crimp to seal the last fold. Carefully lift and add the bread seam side down back into the pan. Cover. Preheat the oven to 425F degrees convection bake.
Let the dough proof for the last 30 minutes. If you're in a cold climate, feel free to allow the dough to proof for an additional 15 minutes.
Drizzle the top with avocado oil. Use your fingers to dimple the dough. Gently poke your fingers down and wiggle. Yes, wiggle. Repeat across the pan. Different shaped bubbles may form on top. Don't pop them.
Design the top with more sweet potato filling. Bake for 25-30 minutes. (***7)
Remove from the oven. Using the remainder of the filling inside the piping bag with a Bismark tip fill the baked bread with additional sweet potato filling especially along the edges. Sprinkle another thin layer of the brown sugar cinnamon mix on top of the bread. Drizzle the melted butter on top of that.
Broil on low until caramelized. Do not leave the oven during this step. Each oven is different. It took mine 40 seconds because I moved the pan to the second highest rack from the top.
LET IT REST! Please resist cutting into it right away and letting all the steam escape and drying out the bread. Don't let all this work be in vein. For those who don't want to listen, give it at least 30 minutes.
ENJOY! S/O to you for making it to the end. Definitely let me know how everything went.
IV. Troubleshooting Tips
***
Cooking the purée is allowing time to cook out the water in the sweet potato, helps to make the filling thicker, and concentrate the flavor.
Allowing the flour and water to rest for 30 minutes, allows the flour to absorb the water and become better hydrated first before adding in additional ingredients. Also, currently bread flour is the flour that yields the best results. I will test this bread again using a combo of '00' and bread flour and report back.
If you're using instant yeast, you do not need to bloom the yeast. Just add it into the bowl with the remaining ingredients.
a. Instead of adding the spices directly to the dough, mixing it with the sugar and making sure it's void of clumps allows it distribute through the dough evenly. b. If you're using vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste, add it into the dough with the rest of the ingredients in Step 6.
Salt can be dehydrating. I like my yeast to come in contact with sugar or a no-salt mix first, then add the salt in after. In recipes where it just has you add everything at one time, sometimes I still will add salt in after or at least keep the yeast and salt away from each other in the bowl.
Wait until the last fold to stuff the bread with filling. I have stuffed the bread throughout the folding process and it weighed down the dough during the proofing process, thus when it was time to bake the texture of the bread didn't rise properly and the crumb/internal structure was compromised. You do not want to do all this work for the bread to not bake properly. This is why there's purée in the dough, stuffed once before baking, gets designed on top and then stuffed again after the crumb/the interior texture of the bread has had a chance to actually bake and set.
If your oven doesn't have convection, bake on the middle rack at 425F for the first 15 minutes and lower it to 400F for the rest of the bake.
This is a tight crumb focaccia. Do not overbake and again let it rest before slicing.
As always, do not repost or distribute this writing and recipe without permission. For publishing and licensing this recipe, email [email protected] to submit a request that includes but is not limited to making to sale for profit, for television, for print and publication, for digital distribution. Everyone else for non-business use, happy baking! Share with loved ones and I know whoever you make this for is going to be one lucky individual. Excited to buy me a coffee, please do!
