This Sweet Potato Cake with Italian Meringue Frosting is the 300th Garlic Girl post! Yay!
It’s been about ten years that I’ve been sharing my recipes right here on my little blog. While I don’t post as much of many bloggers, Garlic Girl is a very meaningful place for me to share my recipes and various aspects of my life.
The best part of sharing is hearing from somebody how much they enjoyed making a recipe they found on my blog. Just today, somebody shared that they’re tossing all their brownie recipes after making this brownie recipe I shared years ago. It’s a reminder to me how important it is to keep content fresh.
Sometimes I’m in awe of the amount of posts some bloggers generate. I mean, some people post a few times a week or more! I think if I didn’t work full time that I’d post at least once a week. But with my job, it’s challenging to hop online to blog after being in front of the computer for work most of the week.
The Best Sweet Potato Cake
Some people ask me what my favorite recipe is that I’ve shared on Garlic Girl. The thing is, I don’t share recipes if I don’t love the recipe, but I have to say that there are several recipes that I go to over and over, and one of those is this recipe for pumpkin cake.
And I mention that because this sweet potato cake is very similar to that same recipe, except that I used all cake flour (not a combination) and swapped out the pumpkin puree for fresh-baked sweet potatoes.
I wasn’t sure how it would turn out with the sweet potatoes, but I really loved it. This cake has a dense texture with a little soft crumble. The combination of the fall spices and the sweet potato was a big win.
If you like cinnamon and pumpkin spice, you’re going to love this. I’m not a hundred percent sure you have to like sweet potatoes to love this cake. I know that might sound surprising, but it’s changes the sweet potato game when added to cake.
Italian Buttercream Meringue Frosting
I wasn’t sure what to call this smooth and fluffy frosting because it’s sort of a combination of swiss meringue and simple buttercream frosting. I guess the name isn’t as important as the taste and texture. And it has the BEST taste and texture!
Like a lot of people, I’m not a fan of buttercream frosting because it’s too sweet and the texture feels heavy and gritty to me. I’m always trying to eat around it, which is not the point of frosting.
On the other hand, I love almost anything meringue with all its light and fluffy goodness. So when it comes to creating fluffy, light frostings, adding whipped egg whites is the way to go. If I had it my way, I’d just use meringue, without the added butter to frost all my cakes, but a lot of times I’m toting cakes around which requires the layer cakes to have some stability. Unfortunately, I know all too well what cakes look like when the layers slip off – especially right before arriving at a party to present somebody with a cake.
The Best Sweet Potato Cake with Italian Buttercream Meringue Frosting
Ingredients
For the Cake
- 2 1/4 c cake flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp ground ginger
- 1 1/2 sticks butter room temperature
- 1 cup sweet potato baked, skinned, mashed
- 3/4 c buttermilk
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 eggs room temperature
Italian Buttercream Meringue Frosting
- 5 egg whites room temperature
- 1 1/2 c granulated sugar
- 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
- 1 c water
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 c powdered sugar if needed (for added sweetness)
- 4 sticks butter 4 sticks = 1 lb
Instructions
To Make the Cake
- Heat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Butter and flour two 9" cake pans. Line with parchment paper. Tip: butter both sides of parchment paper and flour the top. Set aside.
- In medium mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and salt. Set aside.
- Into another mixing bowl, beat sweet potato until smooth. Note: Mashing the potato will leave it too chunky. I used an immersion blender, but you can use a food processor, blender or hand mixer.
- Stir buttermilk and vanilla extract into the sweet potato; set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, or with a hand mixer, beat together the butter and sugar until pale yellow and fluffy, about 3-4 minutes.
- Add eggs, one at a time. Scrape down sides and beat another 10 seconds. Slowly beat in sweet potato mixture until smooth, about a minute.
- To butter mixture, add the flour mixture and beat until well-blended.
- Pour evenly into cake pans and bake for about 25 minutes, until toothpick comes out dry when inserted in the center, Remove cake from oven.
- After 5 minutes, remove cakes from pan and let cool completely before frosting.
For the Italian Buttercream
- Before beating the eggs, make sure the bowl, the whisk attachment, spatula, etc,. are all very clean and wiped down with lemon juice or white vinegar.
- To bowl of stand mixer, add egg whites, cream of tartar, salt and beat with whisk attachment until foamy. On medium speed, slowly sprinkle in 1/4 cup of the sugar, and then beat on medium high until soft peaks form.
- Add 1/4 cup water and 1 cup of the sugar to small sauce pan and heat until bubbling and reaches 240 degrees F. It's best to use a candy thermometer to make sure it's precise.
- On slow speed, slowly drizzle the hot sugar water into the egg mixture. Once the liquid has been added, increase the speed to medium high and beat until stiff picks form and the mixture has cooled.
- Switch to paddle attachment and on medium speed start adding the butter a couple tablespoons at a time. The texture will change, but continue to beat until the mixture until desired consistence. This could take about 10 minutes.
- Taste the frosting, and if you'd like it sweeter, add another 1/2 cup or more of powdered sugar while continuing to beat.
Make the Layer Cake
- Spread and one-inch layer of frosting on the first cake and then top with the second cake. Press down to make sure it's even. Frost cake to cover as desired. To decorate, add frosting to piping bag with a large tip.
Leave a Reply