Washington - One of the best gifts to bakers of all stripes must be the classic Bundt pan, for in it a batter bakes into easily sliced sections and looks as good with a finishing top coat of glaze or icing as it does with a shower of confectioners' sugar (effortless, and a dream for busy cooks).
Moist and full of character, the batter for my sweet potato cake finishes to a plump conclusion in that very tube pan. The use of sweet potato puree instead of pumpkin distinguishes the batter with a rounded, less vegetal aroma and forms the perfect platform for the warm spices. Cooks with a lot of squash on hand needn't worry: This batter gracefully accepts the substitution of pure pumpkin puree.
Though the plain cake entices, consider one of the following additions, to be first tossed with 2 1/2 teaspoons of the sifted mixture before being stirred into the batter just prior to scraping into the prepared pan: 1 cup of dried cranberries; 1 cup of dried tart (cherries; 1 cup of diced pitted dates; 1 cup of coarsely chopped walnuts; or a combination of 3/4 cup of raw, hulled pumpkin seeds and 1/3 cup of raw sunflower seeds.
Pantry ingredients plus a few other staples, deepened with the sweet potato puree, combine to make an impressive cake with a fairly close-textured, dewy crumb.
Serve the cake plain (it stands on its own beautifully), with maple syrup-sweetened dollops of whipped cream or with a side of poached fruit.
Brown Sugar-Sweet Potato Cake
16 servings (makes one 25cm cake)
MAKE AHEAD: The cake can be made a day in advance and kept at room temperature.
From Lisa Yockelson, author of Baking Style: Art, Craft, Recipes (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011).
Ingredients
3 cups flour
1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt, preferably fine sea salt
2 teaspoons ground ginger
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
16 tablespoons (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups firmly packed dark brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
4 large eggs
3 tablespoons light unsulphured molasses
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
15 ounces (425g) canned sweet potato puree (may substitute canned pure pumpkin puree)
Confectioners' sugar, for dusting
Steps
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees 9175decC). Coat the inside of a 10-inch (25cm) Bundt pan with flour-and-oil cooking spray.
Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and cloves on to a sheet of wax paper.
Beat the butter in the bowl of a stand mixer or hand-held electric mixer on medium speed for 4 minutes, or until quite creamy. Stop to scrape down the bowl.
Add the dark brown sugar in three additions, beating for 1 minute after each one. Add the granulated sugar and beat for 1 minute longer. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing for 30 seconds after each addition, to blend. Stop to scrape down the bowl. Blend in the molasses and vanilla extract on low speed.
Add the sweet potato puree; beat on low speed to incorporate. The mixture might look slightly curdled at this point, but it will smooth out once the sifted mixture is introduced. Continuing on low speed, add the sifted mixture in three additions, stopping to scrape down the bowl after each one and mixing just until absorbed. Spoon the batter into the prepared baking pan. Use a rubber spatula to smooth the top. Bake for 1 hour or until a wooden pick inserted in the cake emerges clean. The baked cake will pull away slightly from the sides of the baking pan.
Transfer (in the pan) to a wire cooling rack to cool for 10 minutes, then invert the cake onto a separate cooling rack and remove the pan. Cool completely. Store in an airtight cake keeper.
Sift confectioners' sugar over the top of the cake before slicing and serving.
Nutrition Per serving: 340 calories, 5 g protein, 51 g carbohydrates, 13 g fat, 8 g saturated fat, 75 mg cholesterol, 250 mg sodium, 2 g dietary fibre, 29 g sugar
Washington Post
* Lisa Yockelson is the author of Baking Style: Art, Craft, Recipes (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011) and reveals what's on her cooling rack on Twitter @sweetpinkbaker.