Monday, March 04, 2013

Sweet Potato Spice Cake with Cinnamon Honey Glaze—Secret Recipe Club

Sweet Potato Cake with Cinnamon Honey Glaze

I made this delicious cake after pouring through my assigned blog for March for the Secret Recipe Club.  The decision on what to make wasn’t easy—I could not decide.  Check out Kate’s blog, Food Babbles.  She is truly a gal I can relate to with a love of baking, sharing and writing.  I loved reading through her About Me page all about her love of baking, photography and writing and hearing about her family.  She’s married and has two cute little girls.  (Guess that’s where we differ with my husband and I having four boys.) ;)  I love her weekly post called The Weekend Whisk as she does a run down of what has happened during the week.

I also like on Kate’s blog that she and another blogger have a group called First on the First where on the first of every month they bake/make and post a newly challenge recipe/concept/idea.  Look at the cute cake she just made (on the link to First on the First.  You would never see the flaws, but she keeps it real with the challenges she had and learning new things.  This month was all about decorating a cake.  She made a white cake with raspberry lemon filling (yum!) that has some cute little bees on top and is so nice looking with flowered chocolate transfer sheets.  I have never worked with those, but now I want to try.

I seriously couldn’t decide what to make from her blog.  And I actually started with her Lemon Biscotti.  She dipped the bottoms of her in melted white chocolate.  I drizzled mine.  They were good!

Lemon Biscotti with White Chocolate Drizzle

I could have just blogged those, but was looking through her blog again another day and found this Cinnamon Crusted Sweet Potato Bundt Cake with Honey Glaze she made and well, there were two reasons I decided to make the cake.  One, she made it on my birthday last year, November 15, which just happens to also be National Bundt Cake Day.  Two, every time I’d gone in my pantry over the last couple weeks, I saw 3-4 sweet potatoes I had that I was neglecting (not sure why, since I love them).  So I was inspired to make her sweet potato cake.  I knew I’d like it and for that reason, I halved the recipe (portion control)!  I changed a few things, but really not too much.  Just to make myself not feel so guilty when I ate some, I used whole wheat flour instead of all purpose flour.  I also added some cinnamon to the cake batter and the honey glaze (as well as the streusel, which she included in her recipe).

After making the batter, I put it in a six inch round cake pan and still had enough batter left to make four cupcakes.  I made the cupcakes with just streusel on top (no glaze)—delicious!

Sweet Potato Cake with Cinnamon Streusel March SRC

The cake was good, too!  No one here at my house had a clue I used whole wheat flour and I didn’t even tell them it had sweet potato in it, just told them it was a spice cake.  They would have turned their noses at sweet potato in a cake.  (Tricked them!)

Sweet Potato Cake with Cinnamon Honey Glaze--March 2013 SRC

Sweet Potato Spice Cake with Cinnamon Streusel and Cinnamon Honey Glaze, by Katrina, Baking and Boys! (adapted from Kate at www.foodbabbles.com)

For the Streusel:

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

6 tablespoons whole wheat flour

3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled

For the cake batter:

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

1 large egg

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons cooked and pureed sweet potato (about 1 large)

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup plus 6 tablespoons whole wheat flour (165 grams)

pinch of allspice

1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3/8 teaspoon salt

1/2 tablespoon baking powder

6 tablespoons fat free milk

3 tablespoons apple juice (or cider)

For the glaze:

1/4 cup honey

1/4 cup powdered sugar

1 tablespoon fat free milk

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.  Butter then flour a six inch round cake pan a line muffin tin with 4 liners (or you could just make an 8 inch round cake or all cupcakes—which was actually my favorite with the streusel on top).

In a small bowl, combine the brown sugar, flour and cinnamon for the streusel.  Drizzle with the melted butter and mix well with a fork.  Set asides or refrigerate until needed.

For the cake batter, in the bowl of a mixer, cream together the butter, brown sugar, egg and vanilla until light and fluffy.  Add the pureed sweet potato (previously cooked in the microwave with fork piercings for 3-4 minutes until soft all the way through, then cooled enough to remove skin and puree’ in a food processor until smooth).  In a medium sized bowl, combine the flour, spices, baking powder and salt and whisk together.  In a cup, combine the milk and apple juice.  Add the dry ingredients alternately with the milk/juice beginning with some of the dry ingredients, then half the milk mixture, ending with the dry ingredients.  Beat into the batter until well combined.  Pour half the batter into the prepared cake pan and/or lined muffin tin.  Add a good amount of the streusel to the top of the cake batter, then top it with more batter.  Scoop the rest of the batter into the muffin tins and top with the remaining streusel.

Bake the cake for 35-40 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. (The cupcakes baked for 21 minutes and the six inch cake baked for 37 minutes.)  Cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes, then remove the cake from the pan and let cool completely on a wire rack. 

For the glaze—In a small bowl, combine the honey, powdered sugar, milk and cinnamon and stir until smooth and no lumps of sugar remain.  Drizzle over the cooled cake. 

Sweet Potato Cake with Cinnamon Honey Glaze

Check out Kate’s blog, Food Babbles if you haven’t already!

22 comments:

Sara said...

Love this...such a great idea to use sweet potatoes in a spice cake...bet it is so delicious! :)

Sarah said...

definitely trying this! it sounds amazing.

Beth @ Good to be the Cook said...

Drooling... omg! And they're "healthy" too right with the sweet po? :) Stopping by from www.itsgoodtobethecook.com for the SRC March Reveal. Can't wait to read more from your blog!

Cookaholic Wife said...

I've wanted to try a sweet potato cake. This looks great!

Unknown said...

I can certainly see how you went back for more! both of those creations look amazing!

megan said...

You mean old mommy - tricking your kids into eating sweet potatoes.....

Ha ha ha - I would totally (and have done) the exact same thing :)

Lisa~~ said...

I had Kate's blog last month and made her lemon biscotti...they were good. All your recipes look wonderful. If you haven't already, I'd love for you to check out my SRC entry Loaded Potato Soup.

Lisa~~

Cooking Rookie said...

Wonderful cake! Looks so delicious. Can I have a slice?

Amanda E said...

This cake looks delicious, and agree with others that can argue this cake is "ealthy" since it has the sweet potatoes! Awesome SRC pick

Moviegirl03 said...

We love sweet potatoes...this sounds like a great cake!

Miz Helen said...

Hi Katerina,
Your Sweet Potato Spice Cake with Cinnamon Honey Glaze looks delicious!
Thanks for sharing and have a good week.
Visiting from Group B SRC
Miz Helen

Kirstin said...

Wow! Both those and the biscotti sound amazing. I will have to try them for sure. Great choices. I'm a fellow SRC member, group D.

Kate | Food Babbles said...

Wow! I am SO impressed! Your biscotti look absolutely picture perfect and I love your glaze. Just the perfect touch. I'm so happy you liked both these recipes. I love your addition of cinnamon throughout your adaptation. Thank you for all your kind words and I'm glad you enjoyed looking through my site this month!

Unknown said...

While teh biscotti are beautiful it is that cake that caught my eye. Honey. Sweet ptatoes, streuusel. Oh, yeah!!

Katherine Martinelli said...

Wow these both look so good - I can see why you couldn't decide! Gorgeous.

Elizabeth said...

All these sweets look so good! yay for src :)

Chaya said...

I love the idea of the glaze and the streusel. Almost too much goodness but there is no such thing. Beautiful cake.

Camilla M. Mann said...

Yum! Nothing else to say. Just yum. Perfect pick for the SRC.

Nancy @ gottagetbaked said...

lol, I'd have to trick my husband into eating this too - he hates sweet potato (although will eat it when it's candied and whipped at Christmas, of course!). It looks wonderful - so moist and soft inside. And I bet the flavours were unbelievable. Your biscotti also looks fabulous!

Lesa @ Edesias Notebook said...

Both of your creations look amazing, Katrina! The glaze on the cake really takes it over the top!

Nicole @ Daily Dish Recipes said...

Oh wow, just wow. That sweet potato spice cake looks divine! What a wonderfully perfect pick this month!

Shelby said...

oh you sneaky mom you! you can trick me anytime if I get a treat like that cake! :) I'm a huge biscotti fan too and your biscotti pic is amazing. Makes me wish I had one to go with my coffee this morning while I wait to see if this snow is going to keep me home longer :)