Pt III: Final Version (recipe post)

the story of a sweet potato cake in three parts

Most people I know hold sweet potato pie as one of, if not their favorite dessert. It taste like home and history to many Black American palates and everything about it is comforting: velvety texture, warming spices, and flaky, buttery crust. A no-brainer. Since I have been testing recipes for the Charleston dinner, few I’ve talked to have had, let alone heard of sweet potato cake. This was a fun project because of that—the opportunity to share one more reason—as if we need it—to love this humble, culinary-cultural touchstone of a tuber (and for even more insight into “how the sweet potato continues to get us through,” check out this episode of Climate Cuisine.)

I first searched my cookbooks for a recipe to try. Many casserole recipes, many pies, a poundcake or two. Patty Pinner’s Sweets has a yam cake that features grated raw sweet potato (I assume) along the lines of a carrot cake. I may come back to this one to try later. I knew though, that for this event,  I wanted the sense of occasion that only a layer cake can provide. And it needed a creamy crumb—something a bit lighter than pound. I went to google and in the spirit of full disclosure, this is the recipe I started with. I did not mess with the ratios too much but did mess with the ingredients, techniques involved, and flavor profile.

I wanted the cake to have an intense fragrance of roasted potato, and an intentional move away from the over-exposed, autumnal spice coziness usually associated with sweet potato (or worse pumpkin). A citrus note, and even an herbal note might better support the earthy, sweet smokiness of the roasted potato. I use a pinch of mace and ginger in the batter but sandwiched a quick-made orange thyme marmalade between layers for an unexpected brightness.

Such a creamy crumb plus buttercream calls for a bit of textural contrast. At Charleston, in addition to the Burnt honey Hennessy caramel, I plated with rye crumble—an addictive riff on Momofuku Milk Bar’s milk crumbs that feature less sugar, my own granola and rye flour. But we don’t always have the time to do all that. For the final version in these images, I used the extra egg whites to make quick brown sugar meringues to crunch up on top of the cake.

The last thing I’ll say  about this version is that Chef Kurt Evans who was on our Charleston team (and who is quite the cookbook collector I hear) was going on about this cookbook he just got called Relae. He explained that more than whole recipes, it was a book of techniques and ideas. He told me about a technique for a potato dish that might work for sweet potatoes too. The book sounded cool and it is. I borrowed the potato technique for a more intense roasted sweet potato flavor in this version of the cake and have Kurt to thank.

***Curtis & Cake Sweet Potato Cake Recipe

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground mace

1 stick (4 oz) unsalted butter softened

2 teaspoons grated orange zest

2/3 cups sugar

1/3 cup brown sugar

1 egg, 2 yolks (set 2 egg whites aside for meringues if you like)

1 1/4 cup mashed roasted potato

1 cup whole milk

This version uses 6” cake pans. We are two people and don’t need all that cake. You can double the recipe and use 9” pans.

Day 1. Preheat oven to 400. Scrub and dry two medium-large potatoes. Coat generously with olive oil and carefully stab each a few times with a fork.  Lay on parchment-covered sheet pan and roast until your house smells good, the skins are charred in places, and your thumb can push into the potato a good half inch. Let cool. Peel. Push potato through a fine sieve to remove strings. Store potato and set skins aside.

Heat milk in a medium saucepan over medium high heat until just before boil. Add skins and simmer  a while (I think I did maybe 15 minutes). Set aside to cool. Refrigerate milk over night in a covered container (with skins in).

Day 2. Preheat oven to 350. Prepare and line two 6x3 cake pans. Strain milk and measure out 1/2 cup. Reserve remainder for your buttercream or to stir into the extra sweet potato mash that you made for dinner.

Add zest and both sugars to bowl of stand mixer. Mix on low speed with paddle until evenly distributed and sugar smells fragrant. Whisk flour, soda, powder, salt, ginger, and mace together in a bowl and set aside. Add softened butter to mixing bowl and mix on medium high until light and fluffy (10 minutes), scrapping down periodically. Add the egg gradually, mixing in between. Add the mashed sweet potato. Mix on medium until combined and fluffy scraping…always scraping.

Add a third of the dry and mix until just combined. Alternate with the sweet potato milk, ending with the dry. Mix until just combined. Once the bowl is off the mixer, I like to give the batter one or two last scrape-n-folds with the detached paddle to make sure all ingredients have been combined.

Divide between the two pans and bake until done—about 45 minutes but, you know, use all your sense and keep an eye (or, as Edna Lewis taught me, an ear) on them.

Let cool, turn out, wrap and refrigerate or freeze. Proceed to dress them as you wish. For these images, I used the marmalade, brown sugar meringues, and made a quick American buttercream with a splash of bourbon and the remaining sweet potato milk to frost.