I decided to make this cake because I’ve been so intrigued with using vegetables in cakes lately. Actually, since I made my Rosemary Pecorino Potato Bread, I’ve been interested to see how a similar vegetable would work in a cake. The potato in the bread created a light, fluffy and delicious bread and I wanted to see if sweet potato would do the same for a cake. I was very happy to see that that was indeed exactly what it did. Adding mashed sweet potato to the batter resulted in a moist, light crumb and added lovely depth to the cake. I wanted to fill the cake with something simple and relatively neutral in flavour as the cake and the buttercream are both very flavourful and I didn’t want the finished cake to be overwhelming. I decided to use a very lightly sweetened chantilly cream (vanilla cream) which worked perfectly. To top the cake, I made a maple syrup flavoured buttercream which was light, fluffy and sweet. For a final flourish, I added the maple-candied nuts which was, perhaps a bit over-the top but man, was it a good decision. I used salted, roasted mixed nuts and the intense saltiness paired with the sweetness of the maple syrup was just heaven and reminded me a lot of the flavour bomb that is bacon with maple syrup. This cake is pure perfection for the Festive season and should definitely be the centerpiece of your dessert table.
