COOKBOOKS GALORE

I keep buying sweet potatoes and  forgetting about them, so decided to use them up in a cake. I had a look online, but thought most were too fussy for me. This one came from the book I've mentioned before, 'Cakes Mom Used to Make'.  It doesn't have an author, as it's recipes from different people. It makes a big 3-layer cake, but as I was making it for a largish family get together, this was fine. The nuisance part was that you needed 3 x 23cm cake tins. I have 2, so borrowed the other one from my neighbour. Preheat oven 200C/gas6 Prick 2 medium or 1 large sweet potato [about 350g], put on a baking tray and bake for about an hour till they're soft. Take them out and cool for a bit. When they're cool, you can peel and chop them and purée in a blender.  Turn the oven down to 180C/gas4. Grease the 3 cake tins and line the bottoms. Sift together 320g plain flour with 90g of cornflour, then add 3 tspn baking powder, 11/2 tspn cinnamon, 1/2 tspn nutmeg and ...

I'm not usually a fan of American frostings, finding them too sickly, but my daughter wanted me to make her a cake with frosting for her birthday. I decided on a sweet potato one because it's been on my list of 'to make' for ages, and I had bought a bag of sweet potatoes with my weekly shopping. I tasted a cake like this for the first time recently, and thought it was reminiscent of a carrot cake, one of my favourites, but without nuts! This is another recipe from an American paperback I brought back on one of my visits, 'Cakes my Mom used to make'. There are only a few photos in the book, and not one for this cake, so I had to use my imagination; the recipes are very basic so you need to work out exactly what you have to do - not really an ideal baking book. It's a 3-layer cake, filled with an orange cream and covered in a chocolate cream cheese frosting - so not many calories! Preheat oven 200C/gas6. Prick 350g sweet potatoes [ 2 medium or 1 large] ...

We've been eating sweet potatoes for some time, but have never tried them in a cake. I wanted to make something different last week to take to OH's family get together, so decided to make a sweet potato cake. There are lots of recipes and ideas on the net, but many, as is usual with American cakes, had so much sugar.  I played around with a few recipes, tweaking this and that, and tried this one out first as muffins. It we didn't like them, the birds could have an early Easter present! They certainly tasted different, but pleasantly different, so decided to make the cake.  Lots of the recipes I looked at had a marshmallow frosting or some other sickly stuff. This one is one I've used many times since being given it by an American neighbour - it's not too sweet, and I love cinnamon! The first thing you need to do is to roast 2-3 medium sweet potatoes in oven 190C/gas5 for 45 mins or so till soft. Cool. You could cook them a couple of days before and keep them in...