The “Spiced Sweet Potato Loaf with Cream Cheese Frosting,” from The New Way To Cake, by Benjamina Ebuehi, promises a moist loaf with plenty of spice. And the thick orange batter is beautiful, all mixed by hand!
Spiced Sweet Potato Loaf with Cream Cheese Frosting
The New Way To Cake
FOR THE LOAF:
2¼ cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1½ tsp. ground ginger
1½ tsp. freshly ground nutmeg
¼ tsp. ground cloves
¼ tsp. coarsely ground caraway
¼ tsp. salt
1¾ cups cooked and peeled sweet potato
2 eggs
½ cup vegetable or sunflower oil
¼ cup plus 2 Tbsp. superfine/caster sugar
½ cup light brown sugar
¼ cup milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
FOR THE FROSTING:
2/3 cup unsalted butter, softened
1¼ cups confectioners’ sugar
¼ cup cream cheese
Squeeze of lemon juice
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 2lb. loaf pan and line with parchment paper.
To make the loaf, mix together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, caraway and salt in a large bowl. Set aside.
Beat the sweet potatoes and eggs in a bowl by hand until combined. Add the oil, superfine sugar and brown sugar and beat until smooth. Stir in the milk and vanilla and then fold in the dry ingredients. Briefly beat the batter, making sure there are no pockets of flour hiding at the bottom. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 50 to 60 minutes, or until well risen and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let the loaf cool for 15 minutes before inverting it onto a wire rack to cool completely.
To make the frosting, beat the butter and sugar together using a stand mixer for 2 to 3 minutes, or until it’s smooth and pale. Add the cream cheese and a squeeze of lemon juice and beat for 1 minutes, or until you have a thick, creamy frosting.
Once the loaf is completely cool, generously pile the cream cheese on top and use an offset spatula to spread it evenly and thickly across the top of the cake.
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I roasted two sweet potatoes at 425 degrees F for 40 minutes the night before, to get the necessary 1¾ cups for this cake.
This cake is truly a spiced delight. Grind the caraway seeds and enjoy that comforting rye-bread scent. Smell the cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, caraway while you mix this batter.
For “superfine sugar,” I zipped white sugar in my food processor. Easy.
I needed to bake this cake for 85 minutes, until my “toothpick came out clean,” because my baking pan was smaller than a 2lb. loaf.
I won with a moist, flavorful cake. I tasted the cloves and the caraway. Cream cheese frosting is a real treat. My audience approved and ate the whole thing, every day, until it was gone.
Each month The Cake Slice Bakers are offered a selection of cakes from the current book we are baking through. This year it is The New Way To Cake by Benjamina Ebuehi. We each choose one cake to bake, and then on the 20th - never before - we all post about our cake on our blogs. There are a few rules that we follow, but the most important ones are to have fun and enjoy baking & eating cakes!
Follow our Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest pages where you can find all of our cakes, as well as inspiration for many other cakes. You can also click on the thumbnail pictures below to take you to each of our cakes. If you have a blog and are interested in joining The Cake Slice Bakers and baking along with us, please send an email to thecakeslicebakers at gmail dot com for more details.
The Cake Slice Bakers also have a new Facebook group called The Cake Slice Bakers and Friends. This group is perfect for those who do not have a blog but want to join in the fun and bake through this book.
It is a new year and a new book - The New Way To Cake - and our choices for January 2020 were ~
Blood Orange & Olive Oil Upside Down Cake
Spiced Sweet Potato Loaf with Cream Cheese Frosting
Sticky Ginger Cake with Caramelized White Chocolate Buttercream
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