Sweet Potato Cupcakes with a Maple Bourbon Cream Cheese icing!

So everyone has that one cake that got away. I have always had this love of dense cakes, there is nothing better than that friend's carrot cake with cream cheese icing or a hummingbird cake (I recently had a hummingbird cheesecake which was phenomenal! I am also on the hunt for the elusive pavlova cheesecake!).

This recipe came about when I volunteered for the cake duty for my sisters birthday barbecue. My sister and I have always loved baking and I knew that I would have to pull off something amazing for this occasion. Now birthdays in our family always have homemade cakes (usually myself or my sister bake) and because she is so talented herself, I decided that I would do something a little different. This recipe is a compilation of a few separate recipes that my darling husband put together for her (the brief being- something different, maybe like a carrot cake except better?). The hubby pulled through with a sweet potato cake and topped it off with a maple bourbon cream cheese icing, it was destiny....

The cake turned out to be the most delicious, dense and unique cake that we have had recently. The sweet potato gives a rich and sweet flavour, and the maple cream cheese icing is perfectly finished with that dash of bourbon. I decided that it had to be made again for the Biggest Morning Tea! This time I made the recipe into cupcakes to take into work for a great cause.

Sweet Potato Cupcakes
Ingredients:

• 1 cup of butter, softened
• 2 cups of castor sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 3 cups of plain flour
• 2 teaspoons of baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt
• 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg
• 2 cups of sweet potato

Procedure:

Preheat oven to 180'C. Grease a couple of muffin tins and line with paper cases (this mixture will make about 36 cupcake sized cakes (it is brought down from a full sized cake).

In a large saucepan, boil and mash the sweet potato. Let cool.

In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and the sugar until the mixture becomes lighter and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla.

Sift the flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda, cinnamon and nutmeg into a large bowl and mix until combined.

Starting and ending with the flour mixture, mix the flour and mashed sweet potato in alternating batches into the butter and sugar mixture. Beat until just combined- the mixture will be stiff.

Divide the batter among the prepared pans.

Bake the cakes for 20-22 minutes, checking with a skewer. They will be ready when the tester comes out clean. Turn out the cakes and cool.

Maple Bourbon Cream Cheese Icing

Ingredients:

• 500g of cream cheese, room temperature
• 1/2 cup of maple syrup
• 1 tablespoon of bourbon
• 1/2 cup of icing sugar, sifted

Procedure:

Beat the cream cheese until smooth. Gradually add the maple syrup and bourbon and mix until well combined. Slowly add the sifted sugar and beat until smooth. (The icing will be thick).

Use the icing to decorate the cakes and garnish as desired. (We used fried sweet potato chips to give it a beautiful look!).

Fried Sweet Potato Chips

Heat vegetable oil in a deep saucepan (about 2cm of oil), using a vegetable peeler, shave thin slices of peeled sweet potato into a bowl of iced water. When soaked, dry the sweet potato chips into the hot oil and fry until a lovely golden brown colour (DO NOT SKIP THE DRYING OF THE CHIPS- ADDING WATER TO HOT OIL WILL CAUSE IT TO SPIT AND POTENTIALLY BURN SKIN). Dry the fried sweet potato chips on paper towel to remove any excess oil. After the chips have cooled, dust with sifted icing sugar for a sweet caramel style topper.

Additional notes:

• The cake will come out as a dark caramel colour- don't be disheartened, this is perfect.
• Using a deep bundt tin, this cake will need to be baked for 50-60 minutes or until the tester comes out clean.
• Using a 22cm deep round tin, the cake will need to be baked for ~60 minutes.