Kendra's Treats

I decided to bake this cake on a whim. I had some leftover baked sweet potatoes, and my first thought was to make pumpkin bread but using sweet potatoes instead of pumpkin. Then, I decided to make sweet potato cake…because cream cheese frosting! 😉 It doesn’t taste like sweet potatoes per se, more like really, really good spice cake! The spices are nicely balanced, and it’s very moist. The cream cheese frosting just takes it over the top =). Bonus points for being one of the easiest cakes you will ever make! It’s perfect for fall. Enjoy!

Sweet Potato Sheet Cake

1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
1 cup mashed sweet potatoes (see note below)

4 oz cream cheese
1/4 cup butter
2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray 8 or 9 inch square pan with nonstick spray.
2. In a large bowl, whisk oil, sugar, sweet potato, and eggs together.
3. In a medium bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves. Add to the oil mixture and whisk to combine.
4. Pour batter into the prepared pan and bake about 25-30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs. Cool cake completely in the pan.
5. Once the cake is cooled, make the frosting. Using a hand or stand mixer, beat the butter and cream cheese until fluffy and combined. Add powdered sugar and beat until fully incorporated. Mix in the vanilla. Spread into an even layer over the cooled cake.
*adapted from Pies and Plots
Note: I used leftover baked sweet potato. Any kind of cooked, mashed sweet potato would work. Pumpkin puree would probably work too, but I haven’t tried it yet.