Southern Food Museum Celebrates Neglected Sweet Potato Cake

by Hanna Raskin, Posted Oct 22nd 2009 @ 2:00PM

Sweet potato cake. Photo: foodistablog, Flickr.

Sweet potato pie is a Southern food superstar, immortalized in song, celebrated in literature and beloved by American food authority President Barack Obama, who confidently called the filling his favorite while on the campaign trail. And then there's sweet potato cake.

Sweet potato cake is so thoroughly obscure that René Simon, spokesman for the Louisiana Sweet Potato Commission, claims he's never tried it: "I've lived in South Louisiana all my life, and I don't think I've ever had sweet potato cake," Simon tells Slashfood.

According to him, the Pelican State's sweet potato scene is all pie, all the time. "Here, America means mom and sweet potato pie," Simon says.

But pie's near-complete eclipse of cake hasn't stopped the Southern Food and Beverage Museum from including both treats in its upcoming bake-off. The event, co-sponsored by the commission and the New Orleans Public Library, is designed to draw attention to the city's Big Read, an NEA-sponsored program in which community residents are urged to read the same book. This year's book is Zora Neale Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God."

"Sweet potatoes are mentioned only once," museum collections director Chris Smith says. "It's on about page 90; it's almost a passing reference. But the scenes in the kitchen help move the plot along."

The museum put out the call for pies and cakes, because "pie is just more popular, and we wanted to see what cakes were out there," Smith explains. "People just don't seem to make it."

Judging from queries Smith has already received, home cooks do seem to make sweet potato doughnuts and sweet potato fudge bars, but he's holding out for cake. He's asked Steve Himelfarb, owner of Cake Café & Bakery, to prepare a giant sweet potato cake for an event kick-off party this Friday.

The sweet potato cake tradition is "being forged now, by me," says Himelfarb, who suspects the pudding-like consistency of baked sweet potatoes and historical difficulty obtaining the ingredients needed to make a cake were points in pie's favor. Still, he adds, "I've been working on it and think I'm pretty close to where I want to be." He's now equivocating between orange and pecan icings.

Either glaze would apparently be fine by Simon. "I'm excited about sweet potato cake," Simon says with an enthusiasm rare even among industry shills. "If I can get someone to eat a sweet potato, I'll put it in roast beef. Eat more sweet potatoes!"

How do you like your sweet potatoes? Tell us in the comments!

Filed Under: News
Tags: baking, LouisianaSweetPotatoCommission, Southern Food and Beverage Museum, southern states, SouthernFoodAndBeverageMuseum, sweet potato cake, SweetPotatoCake, SweetPotatoes, vegetables

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Reader comments (Page 1 of 1)

10-22-2009 @8:27PM octovus said... Been there, done that. And I'm from Ottawa, Ontario! The recipe I used is at http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Sweet-Potato-Cake/Detail.aspx

I follow it exactly, and like to use a basic brown-sugar caramel drizzle (liquid that sets up like frosting) as both filling to hold the layers, and another drizzle to top the cake, sides un-iced. Somewhere between a spice cake and a carrot cake. See if people can guess the "secret ingredient" (...sweet potato).
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