Sweet Potato Pound Cake

This moist and decadent sweet potato pound cake has a soft, fine crumb and amazing flavor from cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and sweet potato puree. It is the perfect spice cake for fall and winter celebrations!

How to Make Sweet Potato Pound Cake

You can find the full, printable cake recipe at the bottom of this post. Here is a quick look at our steps!

• Preheat oven to 325℉ and grease and flour large bundt pan. (This recipe makes about 8.5 cups of batter.)
• Sprinkle ½ cup of chopped pecans into the prepared bundt pan.
• Dry Ingredients: In a separate bowl whisk the all purpose flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and salt to combine, set aside for later.
• Next, cream the butter in your mixer until smooth. Gradually add the white and brown sugar and mix on medium speed until light and fluffy (3-5 minutes).

• Add the eggs one at a time, blending after each until the yolks have blended into the batter.
• Wet Ingredients: In another bowl, stir together the sweet potato puree, ¼ cup milk, and vanilla extract.

• With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture alternately with the Sweet Potato Mixture to the butter, sugar, & egg mixture. Begin and end with the dry ingredients. We add the dry mixture three times and the sweet potato mixture twice.
• Mix until just blended after the last addition.

• Scoop the cake batter into the bundt pan, covering the chopped pecans.
• Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour and 10 minutes or until a toothpick can be inserted and removed with with no crumbs or just a few moist crumbs attached. Baking times may vary! Peek in as the end time approaches and adjust time as needed.

• Allow to cool in the pan on a wire rack for about ten minutes before turning the cake out.

Here's a look at our freshly baked cake, just after turning it out onto the pedestal. I love the look of the crushed pecans. You could enjoy the cake just as it is, or if you'd like, you can add a simple caramel glaze! We decided to add a glaze this time.

Easy Caramel Glaze

Once the cake cools, you can add a caramel glaze if you'd like. This is a combination of butter, heavy cream, brown sugar, a pinch of salt and a bit of vanilla extract. Find all of the steps and ingredient amounts in the recipe card below.

The mixture is brought to a boil in a saucepan, then cooled to a simmer for about six minutes on the stovetop. The caramel is very thin while hot, but thickens up to a better consistency for glazing as it cools. To bring it to a cooler temperature more quickly, you can chill it or pour it into a long baking dish.

*I could have waited a bit longer before adding my caramel glaze to the cake but I was impatient- this is why it is more transparent. Still just as delicious though!

Recipe FAQs

More Spice Cakes

In addition to other sweet potato cakes (Like our layered sweet potato cake and sweet potato bundt cake), we have many more spice cakes to share with you!

Thanks so much for stopping by today. We hope that you enjoy this recipe as much as we have!

Sweet Potato Pound Cake

BY Melissa and Bebe

This moist spiced Sweet Potato Pound Cake has amazing flavor from sweet potato puree, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and a homemade caramel glaze.

Prep Time: 15 minutes mins

Cook Time: 1 hour hr 5 minutes mins

Course: Dessert

Servings: 15

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Ingredients

• ▢ 3 sticks unsalted butter, softened (339g)
• ▢ 2 cups sugar (400g)
• ▢ 1 cup light brown sugar (200g)
• ▢ 5 large eggs, room temperature (You can place in a bowl of warm water for 5 minutes.)
• ▢ 3 cups All Purpose Flour, (not self-rising) (375g) (I used White Lily)
• ▢ ½ teaspoon nutmeg (1g)
• ▢ 2½ teaspoons ground cinnamon (7g)
• ▢ ¼ teaspoon ground ginger (.5g)
• ▢ ½ teaspoon (2g) baking powder
• ▢ ½ teaspoon salt (3g)
• ▢ ¼ cup milk (62g) (We prefer whole or 2%)
• ▢ 2 teaspoons vanilla extract (8g)
• ▢ 15 oz Sweet Potato Puree (I used canned) (I found mine at Whole Foods). You could also use fresh cooked sweet potato puree (1 ½ US cups)

To be sprinkled in the Prepared Ban before adding the Batter

• ▢ ½ cup (55g) chopped pecans

For the Caramel Glaze

• ▢ ½ stick (57g) unsalted butter
• ▢ 1 cup light brown sugar (packed into measuring cup) (217g)
• ▢ ½ cup heavy cream (126g)
• ▢ ½ teaspoon salt (2g)
• ▢ 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (4g)
• ▢ 1 Tablespoon light corn syrup (18g)

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 325 ℉. Grease and flour a large bundt pan (This recipe makes 8.5 cups of batter)
• Sprinkle ½ cup of chopped pecans into the prepared bundt pan.
• In a separate bowl whisk the flour, baking powder, salt, and spices to combine. Set aside for later.
• Cream the butter with the paddle attachment in your mixer until smooth. Gradually add the sugar and mix on medium speed until light and fluffy 3 to 5 minutes.
• Add the eggs one at a time blending after each to incorporate.
• In another bowl, stir together the sweet potato puree, ¼ cup milk, and vanilla extract.
• With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture alternately with the Sweet Potato Mixture to the butter, sugar, & egg mixture. Begin and end with the dry ingredients. We add the dry mixture three times and the sweet potato mixture twice.
• Mix until just blended after the last addition.
• Scoop the batter into the pan, on top of the chopped pecans.
• Bake at 325 degrees F for 1 hour and 10 minutes or until a toothpick can be inserted and removed with with no crumbs or just a few moist crumbs attached. Baking times may vary! Peek in as the end time approaches and adjust time as needed.
• This makes approximately 8.5 cups of batter.
• Allow to cool in the pan on a wire rack for about 10 minutes before turning the cake out.

For the Caramel Glaze

• Using a medium size saucepan (deep enough to prevent boil over) melt the butter over medium heat.
• Add the brown sugar and the remaining ingredients and heat on medium high heat.Stir to blend, try to keep mixture off the sides of the pan. Once the mixture begins to boil, reduce the heat to low.
• Simmer for 6 minutes, checking often to make sure that it is not going to boil over. It should still be bubbling. After 6 minutes, remove from heat.
• Keep in mind that the caramel with thicken up a bit as it cools. You can pour it into a long glass casserole dish if you want it to cool more quickly. We often refrigerate to cool it off as well. Makes about 1 cup caramel sauce. It can be kept in the refrigerator in an airtight container up to 2 weeks.

Decorating the Cake

• We applied the caramel drip to the cooled cake using a disposable piping bag with the tip snipped away. You could also use a ziplock bag with a small bit of the corner snipped away, or you can spoon the caramel over the cake.

Notes

Cake recipe makes approximately 8-8.5 cups of batter

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