This recipe was created from leftover sweet potato cupcake batter (We created a Sweet Potato Cupcake with Brown Butter Pecan Buttercream icing which is absolutely divine and can be found in our Spring and Summer Cookbook). Since the cupcakes were being frozen for a later event (yes you can do that & we highly recommend it) this cake came right on time for a Sunday night dessert! This recipe makes enough for two loaf pans, or a 9X13 cake pan.
Sweet Potato Crumb Cake with Cream Cheese Filling
Serves 12-20
INGREDIENTS
For the Cake:
1 cup sweet potatoes, cooked and mashed
½ cup butter, very soft
1 ½ cups dark brown sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
½ cup butter milk, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
¼ tsp ground mace
¼ tsp ground cloves
For cream cheese filling:
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 large egg, beaten
2 TBS granulated Sugar
2 tsp vanilla
For the crumb topping:
¾ cups flour
½ cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
⅓ cup cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
½ tsp cinnamon
1 pinch of salt
INSTRUCTIONS
Pre-Prep: Preheat oven to 350 F. Set out butter, eggs, buttermilk, and cream cheese so they reach room temperature.
Place sweet potatoes, skin on, in a pot covered with cold water. Then bring to a boil on the stovetop. Boil for 45-50 minutes, or until very soft.
Lightly grease and flour a 13x9-inch baking dish or two loaf pans.
For crumb topping:
Add all dry ingredients into a medium bowl and whisk until ingredients are combined. Using a fork or pastry cutter, incorporate the butter into the dry flour mixture until coarse.
For the Cream Cheese Filling:
Ensure that the cream cheese is very soft and stir in the beaten egg, sugar and vanilla, until you have a smooth filing.
For the batter:
Drain the potatoes in a colander and run colder water over them until they are cool. Once the potatoes are cool they can be peeled easily by hand. Measure and place the potatoes in a bowl or a stand mixer and beat on high until very smooth. This step is important to do before adding any other ingredients.
Once smooth, add softened butter, brown sugar, eggs, buttermilk, and vanilla to your sweet potatoes and mix on medium-high until combined.
In a separate bowl combine your dry ingredients in one bowl (flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices) and whisk together. Add these dry ingredients to the sweet potato batter on medium-high just until combined.
Place 1/2 of batter into prepared pans and pour cream cheese filling over the first layer of batter. Add the rest of the batter on top of the cream cheese layer and top with your prepared crumb.
Bake at 350 degrees F for 40-45 minutes (loaf pans) 30-35 minutes (9x13) or until toothpick comes out moist but without wet batter.
Notes:
You want the butter for the cake batter to be very very soft! You can accomplish this by cutting the butter into pieces and setting it out near the stove or oven while the potatoes are boiling and the stove is preheating. If a little bit of the butter melts that is okay. The best way to describe the consistency of the butter is for it to be similar to pudding or mayonnaise.
If you don't have mace you can use nutmeg.
While the sweet potatoes are boiling and cooling , you can measure and mix all of the dry ingredients and make the cream cheese filling and crumb topping!
Due to the starch in the potatoes, the batter may be a little sticky! However, it's important not to overmix the batter.