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This take on classic Southern cornbread is begging to be part of your holiday table! Sweet potato cornbread combines cozy autumn flavors with the melt-in-your-mouth texture of homemade cornbread for a deliciously rich side dish to accompany a hearty chili, creamy soup, or juicy roast turkey. Served with a fluffy whipped cinnamon-honey butter you’ll want to slather on everything!
Before You Get Started
- If you don’t want to cook and mash a cup-worth of sweet potatoes just for this cornbread, you can use a can of sweet potato purée instead. Just make sure you get a purée without added spices or sweeteners.
How to Make This Recipe
See recipe card below for full list of measurements, ingredients, and instructions.
Make the Cinnamon-honey butter.
Use a hand mixer (or a stand mixer if you prefer it!) to whip the butter, cinnamon, honey, vanilla, and salt together until it’s super fluffy and everything’s blended really well. You may need to stop a couple of times to scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl, just to make sure you get everything!
If you don’t want a whipped butter consistency, use a fork and mash all the ingredients together instead! That will keep the consistency a little more like “regular” butter. Just make sure to get everything combined really well!
Mix together the wet ingredients.
Add your mashed sweet potatoes, buttermilk, melted butter, yogurt (or sour cream), brown sugar, and eggs to a mixing bowl and whisk everything together until you’ve got a fully-combined mixture. If you’ve got any lumps left in your mashed potatoes, make sure you break those up really well!
then the dry ingredients.
In a separate bowl, mix together all of your dry ingredients. If you want to get a really smooth, well-blended mixture, add all of your dry ingredients to a flour sifter, then sift them into your bowl. I like to sift them twice just to make sure I don’t have any clumps in the all-purpose flour and that everything’s blended as evenly as possible.
Combine.
It doesn’t really matter if you add the wet ingredients to the bowl of dry ingredients, or the dry ingredients to the bowl of wet ingredients. You just want to make sure everything is completely mixed together. Make sure to check for any dry ingredients at the bottom of the bowl!
Ready, set, bake!
Transfer the batter into a baking dish or even a cast-iron skillet if you want more of a Southern presentation for your sweet potato cornbread. Then just like with a cake, bake the cornbread until you can pull a clean toothpick out of the center. Slice it up, add some of that glorious whipped butter, and enjoy every bite!
What I Love About This Recipe
- Some people enjoy a really coarse, crumbly, dry cornbread, but this is not that! Nope. This one is so moist and tender and fluffy. Part of that is thanks to the sweet potato, but don’t be fooled – the buttermilk and yogurt are pulling their weight, too!
- You won’t believe the amount of flavor packed into each square of this sweet potato cornbread! You’ve got the classic cornbread taste, punched up with the earthiness of the sweet potato, the tanginess of the yogurt, the rich sweetness of the brown sugar, and the warmth of the cinnamon. Then you pair it with a honey-cinnamon butter? Oh, mama.
Cheryl’s Tips
- If you want a really crisp edge on your sweet potato cornbread, try baking it in a cast-iron skillet instead of a baking dish! Keep the skillet in the oven while preheating, and carefully take the skillet out right when you’re ready to put the prepared batter in it.
- Not sure how to cook your sweet potato? I’ve got you covered! Check out my posts on air fryer sweet potatoes, Crockpot sweet potatoes, Instant Pot sweet potatoes, and microwaved sweet potatoes for all my tips and recommendations.
Recipe Variations
- Richer, Warmer Flavor: Instead of ground cinnamon, try a little pumpkin pie spice! Don’t worry – there’s no pumpkin involved. In addition to cinnamon, you’ll also get a little nutmeg, ginger, and clove. Some blends also include allspice so you’ll have even more of that warm spiced cozyness.
Making changes to a recipe can result in recipe failure. Any substitutions or variations listed are simple changes that I believe will work in this recipe, but results are not guaranteed.
Sweet Potato Cornbread with Cinnamon Honey Butter
Equipment
- medium mixing bowl or stand mixer bowl
- Hand mixer or stand mixer
- whisk attachment
- refrigerator
- Oven
- 8×8 baking dish
- parchment paper
- medium mixing bowl
- whisk
- large mixing bowl
- Silicone spatula
- toothpicks or butter knife
Ingredients
For the Cinnamon-Honey Butter
- ½ cup salted butter at room temperature
- 2 tablespoons honey
- ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 large pinch salt more or less to taste
For the Sweet Potato Cornbread
- 1 cup cooked, mashed sweet potato
- ½ cup plain yogurt or sour cream, full-fat preferred
- ¼ cup unsalted butter melted but not hot
- ⅓ cup packed brown sugar light or dark
- 2 large eggs
- 1 cup buttermilk see Notes
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 cup yellow cornmeal
- 1 tablespoon fresh baking powder
- 1 teaspoon fresh baking soda
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon salt more or less to taste
Instructions
For the Cinnamon-Honey Butter
- Add ½ cup salted butter, 2 tablespoons honey, ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract, 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, and 1 large pinch salt to medium mixing bowl (or stand mixer bowl).
- For Fluffy Butter: Use hand mixer (or stand mixer) fitted with whisk attachment to mix together ingredients on medium-high speed until fully incorporated into fluffy mixture. Pause mixer as needed and scrape down sides of bowl with silicone spatula to ensure all ingredients are incorporated completely.
- For Regular Butter: Use fork to mash all ingredients together until fully incorporated. Pause as needed and scrape down sides of bowl silicone spatula to ensure all ingredients are incorporated completely.
- Set butter aside until ready to serve. Alternately, cover bowl with lid or food-safe plastic wrap and refrigerate. Remove butter from refrigerator and let butter stand at room temperature 15 to 20 minutes prior to serving.
For the Sweet Potato Cornbread
- Preheat oven to 375° Fahrenheit. Line 8×8 baking dish with parchment paper, then lightly butter inner sides of dish not covered by parchment paper.
- Add 1 cup cooked, mashed sweet potato, ½ cup plain yogurt, ¼ cup unsalted butter, ⅓ cup packed brown sugar, 2 large eggs, and 1 cup buttermilk to medium mixing bowl. Whisk ingredients together until fully incorporated. Set bowl aside.
- Add 1 cup all-purpose flour, 1 cup yellow cornmeal, 1 tablespoon fresh baking powder, 1 teaspoon fresh baking soda, ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon, and ½ teaspoon salt to large mixing bowl. Stir ingredients together until well blended.
- When dry ingredients are fully incorporated, transfer wet ingredients into bowl of dry ingredients. Use silicone spatula to stir ingredients together until just combined, making sure to break up any clumps of dry ingredients.
- Transfer cornbread batter to prepared baking dish. Spread batter out evenly across baking dish, smoothing top of batter with spatula.
- Place baking dish in preheated oven. Bake cornbread 20 minutes.
- After 20 minutes, begin checking doneness of cornbread by inserting clean toothpick (or butter knife) directly into center of cornbread then immediately removing toothpick (or butter knife). Continue baking cornbread 5 to 10 minutes more, as needed, until toothpick (or butter knife) comes out completely clean, with no batter or crumbs.
- When cornbread is baked through completely, carefully remove baking dish from oven. Set dish aside at let cornbread rest 10 minutes.
To Serve
- After cornbread has cooled 10 minutes, use exposed parchment paper to carefully lift cornbread out of baking dish.
- Slice cornbread into 16 equally-sized squares. Serve cornbread warm with softened cinnamon-honey butter and additional honey if desired.
- Salt: The amount of salt in salted butter can vary from brand to brand. If you’re concerned about the cinnamon-honey butter being too salty, wait until you’ve mixed and tasted the butter to add any additional salt. Alternately, use unsalted butter and keep the pinch of salt as written.
- Sweet Potatoes: Make sure your mashed sweet potatoes are completely lump-free before adding the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients.
- Buttermilk: If you don’t have buttermilk, you can make your own. Add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice to 1 cup of milk (whatever kind you prefer) and mix them together really well.
- Leftover Cinnamon-Honey Butter: Transfer any leftover butter to an airtight container. Refrigerate the butter up to 1 month.
- Leftover Cornbread: Let the cornbread cool completely, then transfer it to an airtight container. Refrigerate the cornbread up to 1 week.
Approximate Information for One Serving
Nutrition Disclaimers
Number of total servings shown is approximate. Actual number of servings will depend on your preferred portion sizes.
Nutritional values shown are general guidelines and reflect information for 1 serving using the ingredients listed, not including any optional ingredients. Actual macros may vary slightly depending on specific brands and types of ingredients used.
To determine the weight of one serving, prepare the recipe as instructed. Weigh the finished recipe, then divide the weight of the finished recipe (not including the weight of the container the food is in) by the desired number of servings. Result will be the weight of one serving.
Did You Make This Recipe?
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Try These Incredible Sweet Potato Recipes Next
- Sweet Potato Soup
- Easy Sweet Potato Waffles
- Ruth’s Chris Sweet Potato Casserole
- Hasselback Sweet Potatoes
- Sweet Potato Soufflé
- Air Fryer Frozen Sweet Potato Fries
- Creamy Scalloped Sweet Potatoes
- Roasted Sweet Potato Salad
- Whole30 Loaded Sweet Potato Fries (Paleo, Dairy Free, Gluten Free)
- Sweet Potato Pancakes
- Sautéed Sweet Potatoes
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