Before I go on to talk about these vegan Sweet Potato Cakes, I would just like to say that If I was a sweet potato, I would be utterly offended by those out there who ignorantly fail to see the difference between me and the common old white one. For one, sweet potatoes, when sliced, can be brilliantly orange, yellow or even purple and therefore extremely pleasing to the eye and are packed with nourishing goodness.
Back in the day, sticking one in the oven and dipping it in mayonnaise or topping it with salt and butter was good enough. But now my kitchen life has lead me to a different path, away from the mayo and marg, to desserts.
The sweet potato intervention to the ordinary sponge cake means that it becomes a million times more moist, also preventing it from drying out quickly. Vegetable cakes are great in that sense and they also don’t actually taste like the vegetable. Although, with sweet potato being up there on my top 5 list, I wouldn’t mind. For that reason, I piled in the potato to bring out it’s flare, combined with sweet spices and the combination couldn’t be any better for me.
Questions about Sweet Potato Cakes
How to make Sweet Potato Cakes? To make these Sweet Potato Cakes, you will need to add plain flour, bicarbonate soda, baking powder, coconut sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg to a bowl and mix. Add a dash of lemon juice or vinegar to plant milk in a separate bowl and leave aside to curdle. To the dry ingredients add rapeseed oil, flax eggs, the curdled plant milk and mashed sweet potatoe. Beat the mixture until smooth and creamy. Transfer to cupcake cases and bake for around 25 minutes until a skewer comes out clean.
Are Sweet Potato Cakes healthy? Sweet potato cakes are indeed nourishing, but depending on how much fat and sugar goes into them determines how ‘healthy’ they are as these can increase or reduce their energy density. No saturated fats are used in this recipe (unless you substitute rapeseed oil for coconut oil) and the fibre content is higher – even higher if you use wholewheat flour instead of white refined flour.
Sweet Potato Cakes Substitutions
The coconut sugar can be replaced by brown sugar, caster sugar or stevia (for a sugar free option).
Plain flour can be replaced by gluten-free plain flour or with wholewheat flour.
Any plant milk can be used.
Ground chia seeds can be used instead of flax seeds.
Rapeseed oil can be replaced by another flavourless oil like refined olive oil or by coconut oil if you prefer.
These Sweet Potato Cakes are…
- Moist
- Fluffy
- Spiced
- Spongy
- Gluten-free option
- Vegan
- Plant-based
Sweet Potato Cakes Recipe
Serving size:
Makes 14 cupcakes
Ingredients for sweet potato cakes:
- 250g plain flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 200g coconut sugar
- 180 ml rapeseed oil
- 2 flax eggs (1 tbsp ground flaxseed with 3 tbsp water)
- 100 ml plant milk + 1 tsp lemon juice/vinegar
- 2 sweet potatoes mashed
- 1 tbsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp nutmeg
Method:
- Preheat the oven to 180C.
- Mix the dry ingredients together and the wet ingredients (except the sweet potato) together.
- Now combine the dry mixture and the wet mixture together using a whisk.
- Fold in the sweet potato mash.
- Transfer to cupcake cases and bake for 20-25 minutes.
- Allow to cool before serving or topping.
Made this Recipe?
If you had a go at this sweet potato cake please feel free to give me a shout on Instagram at @food_flaneur – would love to see your pics!
If you like cake…
You should definitely give these recipes a try:
Big Thanks to…
She Wears Many Hats for their inspiration in helping me to create this recipe. You can find their version here.
[…] Sweet potatoes can also be made into dessert (of course!). Check out this cupcake recipe to learn how to turn your potato into pudding: https://foodflaneur.com/2020/01/16/sweet-potato-vegan-cupcakes/. […]