Cake #3: Missy G's Sweet Potato Pound Cake

I love yams. I don't know exactly what the difference between a sweet potato and a yam is, except maybe that a yam is a kind of a sweet potato. As far as taste goes, what is the difference? As far as names go, I prefer "yam". It's easier, and I think "Yam Pound Cake" is a better (and shorter) title.
When I think of yams or sweet potatoes, I think of baking them, adding butter, soy sauce and garlic and other spices. Yum! You mash it all together and have a bright orange side dish. The thought of adding brown sugar and marshmallows makes me gag. So, when I first saw this recipe- which calls for sweet potatoes and brown sugar with spices like cinnamon and nutmeg- I hesitated. But, in the end, no marshmallows were added and it wasn't anything like that nasty Thanksgiving sweet treat.

On Wednesday, January 13th, I decided to cut this recipe in half and make 2 versions- one with butter, one with applesauce. The book suggested baking (NOT BOILING) the sweet-ahem-yams 2 hours ahead of time. Instead, I baked them the night before while watching a movie. The recipe called for 4 medium yams, so I baked 2, thinking I would only make a half-recipe of one cake. I guess my yams were larger than "medium" because they yielded enough for a whole cake (2 cups), so that's why I went with 2 half-cakes. I let the cooked yams cool a bit, then stuck them in the fridge overnight.
On Wednesday, I first peeled and mashed the yams up a little (not too much, just enough to measure- I figured the kitchen aid would mash them up plenty.

The cake recipe says to combine the yams with butter, sugar, brown sugar, eggs, flour, nutmeg, cinnamon, etc. and then add a combo of milk, vanilla extract and maple flavoring. I didn't have any maple flavoring, so I added some pure maple syrup. I just figured that Melissa doesn't want you adding "Hungry Jack" or something cheap. The real stuff is stronger than cheaper syrups, so that's what I went with. I didn't have anything to compare it with so who knows if it worked or not?
Then I added diced Granny Smith apples. The recipe (in half) calls for 1/4 cup, my 1/4 measuring cup was heaping with diced apples. And I think I probably cut them too large.
Once all that was mixed well, I added the "topping" which involved chopped pecans, "cold" butter, and brown sugar. The cold butter was cut up but still stayed in chunks. I started using my fingers to mash it up a little better, but the overall experience was not satisfying. I think next time I will use margarine or softened butter. Also, I didn't have enough chopped pecans due to the fact that I wasn't originally planning on making 2 cakes, so next time I would use about twice as many pecans. I added extra brown sugar just to make the topping go further.

The photo on the right is the batter for the butter version.
The cookbook says "Bake in the oven for 1 hour before testing for doneness." It doesn't say "If you are cutting the recipe in half, here's how long to bake it..." so I had to guess, and I checked them after 1 hour. The cakes looked done but there were some crumbs on the knife I was testing with, so I put them back in, checked them, put them back in, checked them.... until I finally gave up and took them out after they had been in the oven for 1 hour and 25 minutes. The edges were looking really brown and starting to pull away from the pans so I thought they must be done! But the knife test still had gooey crumbs on it. I wrote a note in the book that says "Even for a 1/2 batch, do not check until 1 hour, 15 min."
The photo on the right is the batter for the applesauce version- much more liquidy.

At this point, it was almost 11 pm, on a Wednesday, and I'm saying that maybe- just maybe- this cake is good enough to make you get out of bed naked and stand in the kitchen eating 3 pieces before returning to bed.


Above: The butter version of the cake.
The butter version was better. I'm thinking that applesauce maybe isn't good in pound cakes. The butter cake had a custardy flavor, with not too much nutmeg- it was just right. The flavor was really unique, and really good warm (let it cool for at least 15 minutes, especially so that you can flip it out of the pan, and again onto a plate to make the topping end up on the top).
Above: the applesauce version.
The applesauce version wasn't bad, but it really tasted like apple pie when cold, and I'm trying to figure out why. The combination of yams, 1/2 cup of applesauce and 1/4 cup of diced green apples=apple pie filling? It's a strange discovery to make.









In the future, I will definitely make this cake again, the butter version, with more pecans, and earlier so that we can enjoy more if it while it's still warm.
Right: Should the inside look like that???







Champa prefers the butter version.