This cake brings together all that is best in cakes – softness, moistness, warming spices, sweet caramel accent, lightness and heavenly flavour. There is no taste of sweet potatoes once the cake is baked but there is an unbelievable softness and lightness to the cake. I am guessing that the sweet potato is a major player in bringing that dimension to the cake.
The cake itself is simple to make. You will have to cook the sweet potatoes before mixing the cake batter. All this entails is boiling the sweet potatoes in their skins till the flesh is soft. Exactly like boiling a potato. This process takes about half an hour. Scoop the flesh out of the skins, give it a quick mash, and you have the sweet potato component ready.
This cake doesn’t need any frosting as it is so tasty. The frosting is a glamorous accessory to a fabulous cake. A caramel frosting was used here but vanilla buttercream, cream cheese frosting or whipped cream would be wonderful. (frostings and filings)
With regards to baking pans, the original recipe asked for a 23cm loaf pan. I used a 23cm square pan and turned these into squares. This could be turned into a round cake using a 20cm pan.
Ingredients for Cake
- 200 g softened butter
- 100 g brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 60 ml golden syrup or honey
- 280 g self-raising flour
- 8 ml ground ginger
- 5 ml ground cinnamon
- 200 g mashed sweet potato
Method to make cake
- Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius.
- Grease and line the bottom of the baking pan.
- Using an electric beater, beat butter and sugar till smooth and creamy.
- Add eggs and beat well.
- Beat in golden syrup/honey.
- Add flour, spices and mashed sweet potatoes and beat to combine.
- Turn batter into cake pan, level the surface and bake for 35-45 minutes.
- Cake is ready when well risen, deeply golden and coming away from the sides of the pan.
- Leave to cool in tin for 10 minutes before turning onto a wire rack to completely cool.
Caramel Icing
- 90 g softened butter
- 60 ml brown sugar
- 300 g sifted icing sugar
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 5 ml caramel essence
- 2 – 3 TB milk
- Using an electric beater, beat butter and brown sugar till creamy and smooth.
- Add icing sugar and caramel essence and beat well.
- Add enough milk to get a spreadable or pipe-able consistency.
- Using a spatula generously apply icing to cake or use a piping bag with a large star or round tip and pipe small rounds of icing on cake.
