Sweet Potato Cake – a spiced layer cake made with sweet potatoes, filled with orange cream filling, and frosted with chocolate cream cheese frosting.
OK, so when I first joined The Cake Slice Bakers, I thought to myself – this will be a great opportunity to practice making a cake “pretty”. I’m pretty confident with my ability to make a cake, but how it looks is a whole new story.
Well, this is my second cake, and the second time I’ve been rushed at the end, finishing just in time to take it to an event where I don’t really have the time or the space to photograph it. I guess it’s because there are only 2 of us, and a whole cake is way too much for 2 people. So I look for other opportunities, where there will be more people, but then I’m a bad time manager. What to do!!<
So next month, although I know it will be hard to find time again with Christmas coming and all, but I am vowing to spend a little extra time. Especially since the baby will be coming in January, and who knows what kind of time I will have after that!
This month’s cake was a Sweet Potato Cake. It was the cake that I voted for, as I was really curious to see what the cake would taste like. As expected, though, it didn’t really taste like sweet potatoes. It tasted more like a spice cake, but I’m betting the sweet potato helped in keeping it moist. And my cake is not very orange because I used a white sweet potato. For the frosting, you make a cream cheese frosting, adding chocolate to part, and orange to the other part. I didn’t measure the orange juice concentrate – and I should have known better – so my orange cream cheese frosting turned out a bit runnier than it should have been. I thought it would be ok, but it made the layers hard to keep straight while frosting the outside of the cake – they were slipping all over the place! My favorite part of the cake was chocolate cream cheese frosting. I don’t think I’ve ever had that before, but I will be making it again!!
Overall, it was a good cake. Not spectacular, but good. I can’t wait to see what next month brings!!
Sweet Potato Cake
Ingredients
Cake:
- 2 medium or 1 large sweet potato 12 ounces
- 3 cups of cake flour**
- 3 teaspoons of baking powder
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon
- 3/4 teaspoon of ground nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon of cloves
- 5 eggs separated
- 2 and 1/4 cups of sugar
- 1 stick plus 2 tablespoons of butter at room temperature
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla
- 1 and 1/4 cups of milk
Chocolate Cream Frosting:
- 10 ounces cream cheese*** at room temperature
- 1 stick of butter at room temperature
- 16 ounces of powdered sugar; sifted
- 1 and 1/2 ounces of unsweetened chocolate melted and slightly cooled
Orange Cream Filling:
- 1 cup of reserved cream cheese icing from above.
- 2 tablespoons of frozen orange juice concentrate thawed
- 1/4 teaspoon of orange extract
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400F degrees. Prick the sweet potatoes in 2-3 places, place on a small baking dish and bake for 1 hour or until the potatoes are very soft. Remove from the oven and cool slightly.
- Reduce the oven temperature to 350F degrees. Butter the bottoms and the sides of the pans and line with parchment paper. Butter the parchment paper also.
- When the sweet potatoes are cool peel off the skin and remove any dark spots. Cut the potatoes into chunks and puree in a food processors. Puree until smooth. Measure out one cup of potato puree and set aside.
- Sift the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ground cloves. Set aside.
- In the bowl of electric mixer add the egg whites and attach whip attachment. Beat on medium speed until egg whites are frothy. raise the speed to high and gradually beat in 1/4 cup of sugar. Continue to beat until the egg whites are moderately stiff.
- In another large bowl with the paddle attachment, combine the sweet potato, butter, vanilla, and remaining sugar. Beat until light and fluffy. Add the egg yolks one at a time. Make sure to scrape the sides of the bowl after each egg yolk is added. With the mixer on low speed, add the dry ingredients and milk in alternately in 2-3 additions. making sure to begin and end with the dry ingredients.
- With a large spatula, fold in one fourth of the egg whites into the batter to lighten. Then fold in the remaining egg whites until no streaks remain. Making sure to not over mix or this will deflate the batter. Divide the batter among of the three pans.
- Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. Let the cake layers cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Then turn out the cake layers onto a wire rack and cool completely at least 1 hour.
- In a large mixing bowl, beat together the cream cheese and butter until fluffy. Slowly add the powdered sugar to cream cheese butter mixture. Making sure to scrape down the sides the sides of the bowl. Then beat until light fluffy 2-3 minutes.
- Measure out 1 cup of frosting and set aside.
- Add the melted chocolate to the remaining icing in the bowl and beat until well combined.
- Stir together the reserved frosting, reserved orange juice concentrate, and orange extract.
- To assemble the cake, place one layer flat side up on to a cake stand.
- With a pastry bag fitted with a 1/2 inch round tip and filled with chocolate cream cheese icing, pipe border around the edge of the cake. Fill the center with the orange cream filling smoothing it to the edge of the border.
- Place the second layer on top and repeat the process.Place the third layer on top and use all the chocolate cream cheese frosting to cover the top and sides of the cake.
Linda says
it’s definitely a LOT of cake (it’s just the two of us at my house too). Really fantastic looking cake…and i love the orange jimmies!
Grace says
i’m sorry to say that my favorite part of the cake was the icing, and didn’t even use the cocoa cream cheese. i substituted with cinnamon cream cheese. yum. 🙂
lovely display, though. 🙂
April says
I am not a fan of spice cake, but love,love, love sweet potatoes. And I bet he chocolate cream cheese was to die for!
Kim says
It looks spectacular, I am drooling over it! Can’t wait to see what comes next month.
Caroline says
This is my first to have sweet potato cake, too! Your cake looks good, the sprinkles are a nice touch!
Megan says
I have never tried chocolate cream cheese frosting either, but I think I will give it a try! 🙂
Sandy says
Oh so yummy! I’ve made a sweet potato cheesecake that I love! ♥
Megan says
I have learned to cut recipes down – because otherwise you are left staring at a huge cake –
You did a great job – the decorating is perfect!
Jennifer says
Your cake looks scrumptious! I had the same problem with the orange filling, my cake looked like the leaning tower of Pisa! (Eventually it ended up straight.) Hands down, the best part of this cake was the frosting!!!
Debbie says
Sweet potatoes are so good! Great looking cake….something different!
Mary says
Have you thought about doing your cakes in two stages. Bake/freeze then Defrost/ice. Might make it easier to handle the time.
Bunny says
I think you did a great job with the cake, I have a problem to with finding the time to spend decorating! You did a fantastic job!
steph- whisk/spoon says
i know it’s sometimes so hard to find a few hours to bake–i made mine yesterday in a rush. yours looks great, and i love the orange sprinkles!
TeaLady says
It does look nice and moist. I couldn’t taste the tater either, but hubby said he could. Yours looks tasty.
Katie says
Your cake looks wonderful. I love the orange spinkels you added on top, it really makes it look autumnal.
Fearless Kitchen says
This is a really interesting idea. I don’t know that I’d ever actually try it – I dislike both sweet potatoes and spice/carrot cakes – but it’s interesting. Sweet potatoes are another of those foods we’re supposed to be eating more of, a nutritional powerhouse, and this looks like a great way to get more of it into your diet.