Sweet Potato Cake

This isn't exactly a healthy recipe, but it could be made healthy if you used Splenda! I've never even had sweet potatoes, but my sister and I were needing to use up some pecans, and I found this recipe! It's actually for 2 1/2 dozen cupcakes, but we made it into a cake for the sake of traveling.

Batter:
40 oz. of sweet potatoes, canned or boiled; mashed
1 cup olive oil
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon maple extract
2 cups brown sugar sugar
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ginger

Pecans:
2/3 cup pecans (or walnuts)
1 tablespoon butter
1/4 cup brown sugar


Preheat the oven to 375º. Whisk together (we used a blender) the mashed potatoes, olive oil, eggs, vanilla, maple extract, and brown sugar. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger. Add to the sweet potato mixture and whisk until combined. Bake for about 12-15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. We frosted using one container of store-bought cream cheese frosting.

Now for the pecans. First, grease a large sheet of parchment paper. Put the pecans in a large pan on the stove on medium heat. Add the butter and brown sugar. Stir, scraping the bottom well, until all the sugar is melted and completely liquid. Spread the pecans on the parchment paper, separating them with the spatula so that they don't clump together. Once cooled, top the frosted cupcakes with pecans.

No rating for this recipe - I wouldn't classify it as healthy or cheap, but definitely good for the holidays!