My baking group was having a ‘garden glut’ week, where we all had to bring in bakes that were made with vegetables. I wanted to move away from carrot or beetroot cakes, so went with sweet potato, since I had loads of them in my fridge.

This turned out really well. The spiced cake works really well with the maple icing. A great big slab of this would be perfect with a cup of tea! (or a pint of guinness, as I found at the baking group).

Adapted from recipe on Raspberri Cupcakes blog

I ramped up the spicing in the cake for extra flavour and also added some chopped pecans for texture.

For the cake:

• 2-3 largered sweet potatoes (enough to make 2 cups cooked & mashed)
• 2 3/4 cups plain flour
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1tsp mixed spice
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 cups golden caster sugar
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 4 large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 40g chopped pecans

For the icing:

• 125g cream cheese
• 200g icing sugar
• 1 tbsp maple syrup

1. Cook and mash your sweet potatoes and leave them to cool.
2. Preheat oven to 160°C (325°F). Sift flour, cinnamon, ginger, baking powder, mixed spice and salt together. In a seperate bowl, add sugar and oil to sweet potatoes; using electric mixer, beat until smooth. Add eggs 2 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add flour mixture; beat just until blended. Beat in vanilla. Add the chopped pecans.
3. Make sure your bundt tin is well oiled – bake for 1 hour or until a cake tester comes out clean.
4. Cool in tin for 15 mins before turning out onto a rack to cool completely.
5. Mix the icing ingredients together and dollop liberally onto the cake.
6. Decorate with some pecans.