Sweet Potato Cake
Today we are sharing a fantastic Sweet Potato Cake recipe that belongs on your fall baking list! It is moist, tender, and has all of the warm and cozy flavors of fall.
If you've never tried a sweet potato cake, it similar in many ways to pumpkin spice cake. The sweet potato gives a really nice flavor and texture to the cake, and is complemented perfectly by warm spices of cinnamon and nutmeg.
Table of Contents
Why we Love It
There are many reasons to hop into the kitchen and whip up a Sweet Potato Cake as soon as possible. Here are just a few:
- Super moist, soft, and flavorful cake.
- Sweet Potato Cakes are the perfect fall dessert with delicious flavor from sweet potatoes and warm spices. (Check out our Sweet Potato Bundt Cake and Sweet Potato Cupcakes as well!)
- Simple Ingredients
- Perfect fall birthday cake recipe, Thanksgiving cake, and more!
How to Make Sweet Potato Cake
*You can find the full, printable recipe below! Here is a basic review of our steps:
- First, preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and grease and flour three 8x2 inch round pans (you could also use two 9 inch pans)
- Dry Ingredients: In a medium bowl, whisk the cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt for 30 seconds.
- In another bowl, add the canned sweet potatoes, milk and vanilla extract. Set Aside.
- In the bowl of your electric mixer (fitted with a paddle attachment if using a stand mixer), add the softened butter and mix at medium speed until smooth. Gradually add the brown sugar and white sugar and continue to mix on medium speed for 3 to 5 minutes until lightened in color and fluffy.
- Mix in the vegetable oil. Add the room temperature eggs one at a time, mixing until the yellow of the yolk disappears.
- With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and milk mixture, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients (3 additions of dry ingredients and 2 of the milk/sweet potato mixture).
- Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached. Let cool 5 to 10 minutes and turn out.
Assembling the Sweet Potato Cake
To assemble the cake, I placed the first cooled cake layer on the pedestal, spread the top with our cinnamon cream cheese frosting, and added the next layer. Repeat for the next to cake layers.
Then, frost the top and around the sides with a thin layer of frosting. At this point, we like to chill the "crumb coated" cake in the freezer for 15 minutes (or longer in the refrigerator) to firm everything up.
You can refrigerate the bowl of cream cheese or your piping bag as well if it is getting a bit too soft.
Decorating the Cake
Then, we applied the next layer of cinnamon cream cheese frosting to the sweet potato cake. You can decorate however you like. We went with a smooth finish by heated a bench scraper under hot water and then gliding around the sides of the cake.
I also smoothed over the top with a heated small offset spatula before adding our top border of simple rosettes and stars with a tip 21 piping tip.
I also added a simple star tip border around the base. (Check out our tutorial on the Star Piping Tip Basics if you'd like to learn more!)
More Delicious Fall Cakes
We've made so many fall cake recipes over the years, including a delicious Sweet Potato Bundt Cake and our popular Spice Cake recipe!
We're listing some of our favorites below, but don't miss our full roundup of fall cakes: 50+ of the BEST Fall Cake Recipes!
Recipe FAQs
Thanks so much for stopping by today. We hope that you enjoy this Sweet Potato Layer Cake! It would be perfect for Thanksgiving, fall birthdays, potlucks, and more.
Have you made this? We would LOVE for you to leave a ⭐️ rating as well as a comment and photo below! We really appreciate your feedback!
Sweet Potato Layer Cake
Ingredients
For the Sweet Potato Cake Layers
- 1 ½ sticks unsalted butter, softened (170g)
- 1 cup white sugar (200g)
- 1 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed (217g)
- ¼ cup vegetable oil ( we use canola oil) (54g)
- 3 eggs, room temperature (If in a hurry, place the eggs in a bowl of warm water for five minutes.)
- 15 oz can (425g) sweet potatoes — you could also use fresh cooked sweet potato puree (1 ½ cups)
- ½ cup milk (121g)
- 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract (12g)
- 3 cups cake flour — if you do not have cake flour see Note below (342g)
- 2 teaspoons baking powder (8g)
- ½ teaspoon baking soda (3g)
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon (6g)
- ½ teaspoon nutmeg (1g)
- ½ teaspoon salt (3g)
For the Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting
- 2 sticks unsalted butter, slightly softened (226g) unsalted butter, slightly softened
- 16 oz cream cheese, softened. (452g total) We used two 8 oz packages of full fat cream cheese.
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract (8g)
- ½ teaspoon salt (2g)
- 6 cups powdered sugar (690g)
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon (3g)
Instructions
For the Sweet Potato Cake Layers
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, grease and flour three 8x2 inch round pans (you could also use two 9 inch pans)
- In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Set Aside
- In another bowl, add the sweet potatoes, milk and vanilla. Set Aside.
- In the bowl of your mixer, add the butter and mix at medium speed until smooth. Gradually add the sugar and continue to mix on medium speed for 3 to 5 minutes until lightened in color and fluffy.
- Mix in the oil. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing until the yellow of the yolk disappears.
- WIth the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and milk mixture, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients (3 additions of dry ingredients and 2 of the milk/sweet potato mixture).
- Do not mix above medium speed or over mix the cake batter. This recipe makes 7 cups of batter. Divide between your prepared cake pans.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes (increase baking time for 9 inch pans). Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached. Let cool 5 to 10 minutes and turn out.
Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting
- Cut the butter into slices and add to the bowl of your mixer. Beat on low to medium speed until the butter is softened and smooth.
- Cut the cold cream cheese into pieces and add to the butter, beating at low to medium speed until incorporated. If you are using a hand mixer you may need to soften the cream cheese a bit more.
- Add the vanilla. Gradually add the powdered sugar and cinnamon beating on low speed until blended. Cover the bowl with a towel to keep down the cloud of powdered sugar.
- Increase mixing speed and beat until fluffy. Don't over beat or it will become too soft. If it becomes too soft, just refrigerate a short while to firm it up a bit.
- This frosting will pipe best if used while still chilled. You can make it in advance, refrigerate and when ready to use let it soften slightly (do not microwave) and remix.
- Will frost a 3 layer 8 or 9 inch cake.
Approximately how many servings should this cake yield? Thanks.
Hi Pamela, Depending on the size of your servings, 12 to 15. Hope you will enjoy the cake.
Even if using cake flour, do you still need add the baking soda and baking powder or is that just when using all purpose flour? I'm asking because it wasn't specified.
Hi Khandi, Yes, you would still need the baking soda and baking powder if using cake flour or if using the substitution for cake flour. I hope you will enjoy the cake.
Thank you for answering that question for me. I can't wait to make it and will definitely be doing a review on how it turned out! I'm going to make it for Thanksgiving.
Hi ladies-
It's me again with the pound cake question. Can I use this recipe for a pound cake and if so, can I bake at 325 for about an hour? Also, is there much of a taste difference between the canned or fresh sweet potatoes?
I wanted to let you know that I made your Pumpkin Cake into a pound and I had such great success with it. People are asking for more. Thanks again.
Hi Jackie!
I'm happy to hear that the Pumpkin Cake turned out well for you! We haven't tried the Sweet Potato Layer Cake in a bundt pan but yes, I do think it should do just fine- I would start checking on it at about the 45-50 minute mark but it may take a little longer.
You can use either canned or fresh sweet potatoes and the cake will be delicious! We've used canned for convenience. Enjoy the recipe!
I have not made the sweet potato cake yet but I was curious about #4 when it says (3 additions of dry ingredients) exactly what does that mean
Hi Samantha, Number 1 under the instructions says to add the dry ingredients to a bowl and set aside for later. You will also have a bowl with wet ingredients. After you have completed step #3, you will alternate adding the dry and wet ingredients. You should begin and end with dry ingredients. First, add approximately 1 cup of dry ingredients , then half of the wet ingredients, more dry, then the remainder of the wet, then end with dry. That is 3 additions of dry and 2 of wet. During each step mix until blended but do not over mix or mix above medium speed. Melissa has a video on making a cake from start to finish, below is a link to that video if you would like to watch.
I’m making this tomorrow but will be making cupcakes. How should I adjust the time and temp?
Hi Lori, glad that you're making the recipe! You would still bake at the same temp, but I would start checking after 18 minutes. If the center springs back when lightly touched or toothpick can be inserted with just a few crumbs attached, they're ready.
Hi, can I use a spice cake mix to replace the dry ingredients when making this cake, or will it mess up the result of the cake? And if I use cake mix, would I still need to use baking powder?
Hi Antionette- Swapping out the dry ingredients for cake mix likely won't give you a good outcome.
If you'd like to experiment, I think it would work to turn our Pumpkin Spice Layer Cake- Doctored Cake Mix recipe into a sweet potato cake by substituting the pumpkin puree for sweet potato puree. However, I use a box yellow cake mix in the recipe. If you use spice cake mix, you can just leave out the added spices. Here is a link to the recipe. Good luck!
https://www.mycakeschool.com/recipes-tutorials/pumpkin-spice-cake/
Shouldn't baking time be shortened if using 9-inch cake tins as opposed to 8-inch ones as they are larger providing more surface area and batter is more shallow and not as deep. I'm pretty sure this is backwards from what it should be. Thanks
Hi Pamela- We had mentioned at the top of the recipe card that you could do a two layer 9 inch cake (rather than a three layer 8 inch cake). Even with the slightly larger pans, the batter will likely be slightly deeper in each pan if dividing the batter between two pans rather than three. As with any recipe though, it's a good idea to peek in as the estimated baking time approaches and adjust as needed. Hope you enjoy it!