Sweet Potato Cupcakes with Brown Sugar Cream Cheese Frosting

I am not, in any way, a "foodie" or "food snob." However, I loathe canned sweet potatoes. We had a bounty of sweet taters left over from our visit to the Farmer's Market on Steroids, so I chopped them all up and steamed them to make tubs of puree to freeze for a quick grab in recipes... like this one (that originally called for canned yams, yuck!) Chopping sweet potatoes and steaming them for about 15 minutes is a quick and easy way to use fresh ones in your recipes... because baking them takes for-eva!

Ingredients:

One 16-ounce can sweet potatoes

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ginger

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

1 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1 cup packed brown sugar

1 cup granulated sugar

4 large eggs, lightly beaten

Brown Sugar Cream Cheese Frosting, recipe follows

Candied Pecans, recipe follows

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two cupcakes pans with liners (for 24 cupcakes).

2. Puree sweet potatoes in food processor, and set aside.

3. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, salt, ginger and nutmeg.

4. In a large bowl, whisk together the butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar and eggs.

5. Add flour mixture (#3) to egg & sugar mixture (#4).

6. Whisk in the sweet potato puree.

7.  Fill each cupcake liner in baking pan with 1/4 cup of batter.

8. Bake 20 - 25 minutes, then let cool.

Brown Sugar Cream Cheese Frosting

• One 8-ounce package cream cheese, at room temperature
• 3 sticks butter, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• 6 cups powdered sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1. In a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the cream cheese until creamy.

2.  Add the butter and beat until well incorporated.

3. Add the light brown sugar and beat until fluffy.

4. Add the powdered sugar 1 cup at a time, beating until well incorporated.

5. Add the vanilla extract and beat until combined.

Candied Pecans

Consider these an optional adornment. There is a narrow margin of time & talent between creating candied nuts and burned nuts. Considering the expense of nuts and how iffy this process was, I would just skip it next time. The frosting  is just so good that this isn't needed!

• Nonstick cooking spray, for greasing
• 1 egg white
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 pound chopped pecans

1. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F. Spray a baking sheet with nonstick cooking spray.

2. Beat the egg white in a bowl until frothy; whisk 4 teaspoons water and the vanilla extract into the egg.

3. Stir the sugar, cinnamon and salt into the egg mixture.

4. Add the chopped pecans, stir to coat completely. Spread the pecans onto the baking sheet.

5. Bake the pecans, stirring about every 15 minutes and stir. Bake pecans an additional 15 minutes. The original recipe called for repeating this process every 20 minutes for an hour, but the nuts burned horribly so I wold suggest tyring this modification instead.

6. Allow to cool on the baking sheet.


This recipe was adapted from one created on a 2011 edition of Cupcake Wars!