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Sweet Potato Cinnamon Cake-Sweet Potato Dessert

Moist, rich, sweet potato cinnamon cake is a delicious sweet potato dessert. This Thanksgiving favorite is chock full of fibrous, and nutritious sweet potatoes.

Sweet Potato cake is a traditional thanksgiving dessert in many households. This delicious cake has a moist cinnamon cake that is topped with a sweet glaze and crunchy pecans. This cake makes a large portion for a gathering and delicious leftovers.

This cake is easy to make and can be made ahead for a gathering. Top with the powder sugar glaze, or a delicious cream cheese frosting for a tangy twist.

Single Serving Of Sweet Potato Dessert

Do Sweet Potatoes make cakes moist?

Sweet potatoes add a healthy fat into cakes. The sweet potato adds a rich and moist texture into the baked goods. Sweet potatoes in cake can add a sweet flavor profile with strong notes of sweet potato. Baking with sweet potatoes makes cakes and other baked goods moist and tender. This delicious vegetable also goes great in muffins, cookies, and more.

Cinnamon adds a perky spice to compliment the nutty glaze and cinnamon brown sugar filling. This is a wonderful fall treat or popular holiday dessert.

Sweet Potato Cinnamon Cake

This sweet potato recipe is pure indulgence. It became one of our family favorites. Drop a pan of this cake on Fall party tables or your Thanksgiving feast and watch it go. Kids and grown ups all love this delicious sweet potato dessert recipe.

More Fall dessert Ideas:

If you need some holiday party food ideas, try our sweet potato pumpkin pie, pumpkin pie, sugar free pumpkin cheesecake or pumpkin cheesecake bars. 

Sweet potato cinnamon cake is so delicious! A goody to be enjoyed sparingly. Perfect party food! When you bake from scratch, you know what you are eating.

Top View Of The Sweet Potato Cinnamon Cake

This dessert is one of my weaknesses.

When the dreary days hit, I tend to burrow in with a book and lovely, tasty carbs. Sweet potatoes are good for you though. Lots of fiber and nutrients to balance all that sweet goodness.

Learn how to Make Sweet Potato Puree in your Instant Pot and keep some handy for recipes like this one!

Do you own an Instant Pot? Try this easy method of making your own Sweet Potato puree. This method also works well with other hard shelled winter squash. Steam the sweet potatoes, make the puree and leep some handy for recipes like this one!

Or go look at how to roast and puree pumpkin . This method will work for whole sweet potatoes and make a sweet potato puree that your family will love with no instant pot required. This post also shows you how to freeze it properly.

You can see the crumb is full of yummy cinnamon and glaze. It’s really really good. Make this delicious sweet potato dessert for parties, potlucks and Holiday meals.

Sweet Potato Cake In Pan And A Single Serving

Sweet Potato Cinnamon Cake Recipe:

This recipe is not hard but it has quite a few steps. Just follow the recipe and all will go well. Watch our video on either the sidebar on at the bottom of our printable recipe card for a complete recipe demonstration.

ONE TIP: Be SURE to drain your yams if they are canned. Look at the video and recipe card to see the proper consistency of your mashed sweet potatoes. Otherwise you may have too much or too little liquid in with them.

That will make your sweet potato cake either too dry or too wet. We want it moist and light. Happy Baking!

Your Printable Recipe Card:

Single Serving Of Sweet Potato Dessert
Yield: 24 slices

SWEET POTATO CINNAMON CAKE

Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 35 minutes
Total Time: 55 minutes

This moist, rich, sweet potato cinnamon cake is a delicious sweet potato dessert. This holiday favorite is chock full of fibrous, nutritious sweet potatoes. Cinnamon adds a perky spice to compliment the nutty glaze and brown sugar cinnamon filling. This is a wonderful fall treat or popular holiday dessert

Ingredients

For the Cake:

  • 3 cups flour
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 4 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp nutmeg
  • 1 tsp. cinnamon
  • 2 cups sweet potatoes, cooked and mashed
  • 1 1/2 cups milk
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • 2 tsps vanilla
  • 1/2 cup unsalted butter-melted

For the Cinnamon filling:

  • 1/2 cup coconut oil-melted
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 2 Tablespoons flour
  • 1 Tablespoons cinnamon

for the Glaze:

  • 2 cups powdered sugar
  • 5 tbsp milk
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1 cup roughly chopped pecans

Instructions

For the Sweet Potato Cake:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Grease a 13×9 inch baking pan.
  3. In a large bowl combine flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and nutmeg.
  4. Whisk to combine. Whisking Dry Ingredients-Sweet Potato Cake
  5. In another large bowl add cooked sweet potatoes to a large bowl The Sweet potatoes should be this consistency when added. Sweet Potatoes Cooked And Mashed
  6. Blend the sweet potatoes and milk with a hand mixer (OR stand mixer) until smooth.
  7. Add in eggs whole and Beat until combined.
  8. Pour in the vanilla and melted butter. Blend until combined.
  9. Slowly add dry ingredients in small batches to sweet potato mixture. Mixing until just incorporated between batches. Adding Dry Ingredients Into Batter
  10. After all ingredients are in the large bowl blend until combined.
  11. Pour batter into prepared pan.Pouring Sweet Potato Cake Batter set aside.

Make Cinnamon Filling:

  1. Mix all the cinnamon filling ingredients together until well combined. Combining Cinnamon Filling Ingredients
  2. Drop evenly over the batter. Dropping Cinnamon Filling On Top Of Cake Batter
  3. Swirl in the filling with a knife. Swirling In The Cinnamon Filling
  4. Bake cake for 30- 35 minutes until a toothpick in the center of the cake comes out clean. .
  5. Remove from heat and allow to cool while making the glaze.

Glaze directions:

  1. Combine glaze ingredients mix until smooth. Glaz Ingredients
  2. Pour the glaze over the cake top.Stirring Glaze For Sweet Potato Cinnamon Cake
  3. Glaze cake while still warm so it seeps into the cake..Pouring Glaze On Warm Sweet Potato Cake


To Serve:

Allow the cake to cool and set 30 minutes or more before serving. Cut into 24 squares and serve straight from the pan.

Notes

Make this dessert a day ahead of your party and cover tightly. The leftovers keep well too if kept covered, even at room temperature for a day.

NOTE: Canned sweet potatoes need to be drained before using them in this recipe

Watch the video below to see the proper consistency of the sweet potatoes. And for a complete demonstration of this recipe.

Nutrition Information

Yield

24

Serving Size

1

Amount Per Serving Calories 320Total Fat 13gSaturated Fat 7gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 5gCholesterol 31mgSodium 155mgCarbohydrates 45gFiber 2gSugar 26gProtein 5g

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Sweet Potato cake is a traditional thanksgiving dessert in many households. This delicious cake has a moist cinnamon cake that is topped with a sweet glaze and crunchy pecans. This cake makes a large portion for a gathering and delicious leftovers.

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Beverly

Monday 1st of May 2023

Fantastic recipe! Even the kids loved it!

Diane

Tuesday 2nd of May 2023

Hi Beverly, We are delighted your family enjoyed this recipe. Thanks so much for letting us know. Happy Baking!

Claudia

Wednesday 22nd of December 2021

I made it today. My friends and I loved it! Delicious! I was concerned because some comments I read said it didn’t cook. In my case, the mix was super sticky! But it cooked well and tastes delicious!

Diane

Thursday 23rd of December 2021

Thanks so much for the great feedback and review of this sweet potato dessert. I'm happy it worked well for you and enjoyed it. Happy holidays!

Jennifer k

Thursday 2nd of December 2021

Well I don’t know what to say, I thought this would be a great cake to make for my sister in a GF version. I did half almond flour and half 1 to 1 flour. I cooked it for an hour only to find something like a bread pudding of sorts. This recipe has too much fluid, honestly I know I’m going to try this again but I’ll be reducing the milk to less than 1/2C since sweet potatoes are so moist to begin with.

Diane

Thursday 2nd of December 2021

Hi Jennifer, Well hmmm. Yes this is a heavy moist cake. I'm sure the almond flour is the problem here. Almond flour is not going to absorb as much liquid as wheat flour. Your solution should work. Or I'll point you to this gluten free sweet potato cake recipe by choosing Balance Blog. All the gluten free cakes I'm. finding with sweet potato look very heavy. I think it is just the deal with sweet potato. I hope you find a good solution!

David

Sunday 3rd of October 2021

I have heard nothing but complements about this cake! I work as a line cook and decided to use the leftover sweet potatoes to make a dessert for my coworkers. I read through many recipes before I came across this one. This recipe was perfect! I did substitute the coconut milk and vanilla extract only due to lack of those two ingredients. You should be proud of this recipe!

Diane

Monday 4th of October 2021

Hi David, Thank you for coming by to review this recipe for us. It's delightful to know you and your coworkers enjoyed this cake. It is one of our favorite Fall Sweets. Happy Baking!

Suzie

Sunday 9th of May 2021

This has to be the worst cake I baked. I baked it for 40 mins and yet it came out uncooked. I didn’t have coconut oil and substituted it for regular oil. Not baking this cake again.

Diane

Monday 10th of May 2021

Hi Suzie, Thanks for taking the time to share your experience with this recipe. I'm sorry you did not enjoy this sheet cake. If you ever do try it again I suggest Butter as a substitute for the coconut oil. Butter has a better texture and flavor than regular oil. Have a wonderful day!

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