“During the holiday season, sweet potato is king!” says baker Amanda Mack, owner of Crust by Mack in Baltimore. The humble tuber stars in her deliciously moist sweet potato cake that’s stacked high with layers of rich and lightly salted cream cheese frosting. Simple in design and traditional in flavor, it’s a great addition to a pie-heavy Thanksgiving dessert lineup.
To ensure your cake looks its best, it will need two cooling periods. The first comes after baking the three layers. Freezing them for a couple of hours will keep crumbs from getting into the frosting, which can give a cake a messy look. The second cool down comes post frosting: letting the cake set in a refrigerator for a few hours helps everything come together and firm up, so you get that perfect slice.
To make sure you have enough time, start your baking earlier in the day. You can also speed things along by making the frosting while the cake layers are in the freezer. If you prefer a less sweet frosting, reduce the powdered sugar to 6 cups (680 g).
Recipe information
Yield
Makes one 9"-diameter cake
Ingredients
Cake
1½
3¼
2
1½
1
½
1½
1½
½
7
1
5
Frosting and assembly
2
1
8
1
¾
Preparation
Cake
Step 1
Cook 1½ lb. sweet potatoes (about 4 medium), scrubbed, in a medium pot of boiling water, stirring occasionally, until a tester inserted into centers meets no resistance, 40–45 minutes. Drain and let sit until cool enough to handle. Remove skins, transfer flesh to a medium bowl, and mash with a potato masher or fork. Let cool.
Step 2
Preheat oven to 350°. Spray three 9"-diameter cake pans with nonstick vegetable oil spray, then line bottoms with parchment paper rounds. Spray parchment and dust pans with cake flour, tapping out excess.
Step 3
Sift 3¼ cups (374 g) cake flour, 2 tsp. baking powder, 1½ tsp. ground cinnamon, 1 tsp. ground nutmeg, and ½ tsp. Diamond Crystal or ¼ tsp. Morton kosher salt into a large bowl (or just whisk to remove lumps). Combine 1½ cups (300 g) granulated sugar, 1½ cups (packed; 300 g) light brown sugar, ½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted, slightly cooled, 7 Tbsp. vegetable oil, and 1 Tbsp. vanilla extract in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat on medium-high speed until light, fluffy, and no lumps remain, about 5 minutes.
Step 4
Add 5 large eggs, room temperature, to sweet potato purée and mix well. Scrape into sugar mixture and beat to combine, scraping down bowl as needed. Reduce speed to low and with motor running, gradually add dry ingredients; mix just until incorporated. Divide batter evenly among prepared pans. Bake until cakes are slightly risen, tops are set, and a tester inserted into the centers comes out clean, 25–30 minutes.
Step 5
Transfer pans to a wire rack and let cakes cool in pans 5 minutes. Run a small knife around edges of cakes and turn out onto racks. Remove parchment and let cool completely (rounded side down). Tightly wrap cakes individually in plastic and freeze until thoroughly chilled (this will make cakes easier to frost), about 2 hours.
Frosting and assembly
Step 6
Beat 2 16-oz. packages full-fat cream cheese, room temperature and 1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter, room temperature in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment on high speed until smooth and creamy, about 1 minute. Add 8 cups (906 g) powdered sugar, sifted or whisked to remove lumps, 1 Tbsp. vanilla extract, and ¾ tsp. Diamond Crystal or ½ tsp. Morton kosher salt and beat on low speed 30 seconds (place a kitchen towel over bowl to capture any puffs of sugar). Increase speed to high and beat frosting 2 minutes. It should be thick and creamy.
Step 7
Place a cake, right side up, on a large plate or cake stand. Spread one third of frosting on top. Set another cake on top and frost with half of remaining frosting. Repeat process with remaining cake and frosting. For the cleanest slices, chill 3 hours before slicing. Top with long orange zest strips (if using) just before serving.
Editor’s note: This sweet potato cake recipe was first printed in our November 2020 issue. Looking for more sweet potato recipes? Check out our favorites like a savory sweet potato casserole with brown butter, a sweet potato and blue cheese dip, and a sweet potato pie with marshmallow whip.
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Reviews (47)
Back to TopThis cake reminded me a lot of a local cake that is famous in my town. This cake was very straight-forward to make and the end result was delicious. The cake had nice autumn flavors and the end result was a moist cake. Just a few notes to those who are considering making this. Firstly, I would recommend baking this a little longer than the 30 mins suggested. After about 32 minutes, I pulled the cake out and had the risen top described in the recipe and past a cake tester, but when removed from the pan the center was still under-baked. Secondly, I have a giant sweet tooth, but I highly recommend going with 6 cups of sugar instead of 8 in the frosting (as suggested at the top of the recipe). I did the 6 cups and still had way too much frosting, the inside layers had plenty and I even iced the outside and still had icing left over. I would make this again, but next time I would try 1 (16 oz) pack of cream cheese and 3-4 cups or powdered sugar. With all that said, compliments to Amanda on a wonderful recipe.
Anonymous
Greenville, SC
11/8/2020
I made this cake for a friendly birthday-bakeoff with a few modifications to make 2 layers instead of 3: simply do 2/3 of everything for the cake and 1/2 of everything for the frosting (I still ended up with way too much frosting). Finally, I added half a teaspoon of orange extract to the frosting to help bring out the zest. Great reception on the flavor of everything. However, being an amateur baker, I thought I could get away without owning a stand mixer or hand mixer, and blended the cake batter in my Vitamix. I will say it blended it extremely finely and the resulting batter was very smooth. However, the bake was extremely dense – whoops! – and I think I invented a new type of cake that I was not personally a fan of. No doubt the sweet potato puree contributed to this. Will give it a try again with a stand mixer to experience the true texture and crumb intended by the recipe.
Jordan
Phoenix
11/16/2020
Half the frosting recipe! I ended up with a RIDICULOUS amount of leftover frosting. We haven't tasted the cake yet. It will be our only dessert tomorrow after Thanksgiving dinner. Fingers crossed.
Maggie
Sonoma, CA
11/26/2020
For better or worse, this cake turns out very dense. I wondered if I did something wrong at first, but then I checked the comments and it looks like others had the same issue. I baked it for 30 minutes but it still looked underbaked. I would describe the texture almost like pumpkin pie but more congealed. Definitely not cake-like.
Taj
Philadelphia, PA
11/26/2020
Wonderful recipe! We halved the frosting and did sugar to taste - rather than doing 4 cups of powdered sugar we did 2 1/3 cups - which was great.
Anonymous
Mammoth Lakes, CA
11/27/2020
As everyone else has said, this makes way too much frosting to frost as shown, and the frosting has an insane amount of sugar as written. I measured out 6 cups of powdered sugar and after I dumped it in, saw how MUCH it was, so removed as much as I could before mixing. After mixing that, I tasted it, and added a little more until it was just a little sweet. I'd guess it was around 2 or 3 cups altogether. That being said, the cake itself was also incredibly sweet, so the total dessert was just a giant blob of sweetness. Had I realized that cake would basically taste like a sweet cake, I would have left the frosting with less sugar to balance it a bit more. I put one cup of frosting between each layer, and had leftover frosting even after doing a crumb layer and frosting the entire outside of the cake extremely thickly. If I were to make it again, I'd put 1.5 cups between each layer. That being said, I had expected this to have a pumpkiny or spicy taste, but it was just sweet sweet sweet. While pretty, I'd have to change the spices significantly to make it taste decent, so wouldn't make it again.
Sage Cinnamon
Portland, OR
11/27/2020
I think I must have really messed up because this cake was almost inedible-- so dense and not at all cake-like. The frosting, however, was delicious.
Anonymous
Washington DC
11/27/2020