Sweet Potato Pound Cake, Again

My fondness for Nancie McDermott's Sweet Potato Pound Cake recipe is well documented here. I can't think of much I'd do differently with that recipe -- except for add some crystallized ginger to it. In the end, it's a brilliant addition to this cake. For this version, I added a ginger-cream cheese frosting from Julie Hasson's 125 Best Cupcake Recipes. I added some heavy cream to the icing to make it a little looser for a more glazelike consistency.

Sweet Potato Pound Cake with Quick Caramel Glaze

I was overdue in making something for my colleague Chuck's birthday. Since I now feel beyond certain that I can't go wrong with Nancie McDermott's Sweet Potato Pound Cake, that's what I made. This time, I tried it with Quick Caramel Glaze. For the glaze, butter, brown sugar, and evaporated milk are cooked just to a boil. Then, confectioners' sugar and vanilla are added, and the glaze is quickly poured over the cake. This glaze sets up really fast, perhaps a bit faster than I was banking on. While the sliced cake looked as appealing as ever, the whole cake looked like it was slathered with spray-foam insulation.

P.S. You can follow this link to the recipe for this cake.

A Trip to Houston

A couple of weeks ago, I traveled to Texas for the Houston Marathon. Because the holidays had put me in a cookie-baking frame of mind, I baked a lot of cookies to bring along and share with the friends who were also going to be at the race. I relied on recipes from three books.

From Mom’s Big Book of Cookies by Lauren Chattman, I made:
Benne Wafers: excellent cookie, with an unusual flavor from the sesame seeds.
Sour Cream Chocolate Mint Chip Cookies: soft, cakey. I didn’t love these cookies, truth be told.
Snickerdoodles: a thinner, crisper version than the ones Ryan usually makes on Cookie Day (from a recipe in The Good Cookie by Tish Boyle).
Mexican Chocolate Chip Cookies: pretty good, a chocolate chocolate-chip cookie with cinnamon in the dough.

From A Baker’s Field Guide to Chocolate Chip Cookies by Dede Wilson, I made:
Double Chip Browned-Butter Oat Scotchies: excellent. Oaty, butterscotchy.
Coffee-Toffee-Chocolate Chunk Cookies: a classic.

From Cookies by Jill Snider, I made:
Lemon-Poppy Seed Balls: nice and tender, but in need of a bit more lemon flavor.
Key Lime-Coconut Macaroons: didn’t like them at all; they had a rubbery texture. I made the dough in advance and refrigerated it for a day before baking it. I wonder if that contributed to the unfortunate texture.

Also, to fulfill a promise, I brought along a Sweet Potato Pound Cake, from a recipe in Southern Cakes by Nancie McDermott. I’ve made this one before, and absolutely love it.

Finally, I made a couple of flourless treats for my good friend Enid, who can’t consume wheat-based baked goods. Although I really like baking for friends in general, I get a special bit of joy in baking for Enid because I know that homemade baked goods can be harder to come by for those who can’t eat wheat. So for Enid, it was a batch of Cliff's Brownies (from Gluten-Free Baking by Rebecca Reilly) and a batch of Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies from Lauren Chattman’s book. It’s a brilliantly simple four-ingredient recipe (peanut butter, egg, vanilla, sugar) that I augmented with some Ghirardelli dark-chocolate chips.

Sweet Potato Pound Cake

Continuing on with the bakefest from Southern Cakes, today I made Sweet Potato Pound Cake. I started early in the day by baking four sweet potatoes for the cake. While they were baking and cooling, I cleaned out the fridge. (I really know how to live it up on a day off.) The intro to the recipe says that it's a cake "aromatic with spices," yet the ingredient list includes only nutmeg. Although it was difficult, I resisted the urge to tweak the recipe first time out, including not adding some of the warm autumn spices (cinnamon, ginger, allspice) I thought might be nice in this cake.

The cake has a beautiful golden color and a remarkably tender crumb. Even Claire likes it. Go figure. This cake is worthy of revisiting often. Next time out, I think I'll spice it up just a bit. A bit of minced crystallized ginger might be another nice touch (although I don't know how Southern that would be).