GF: Sweet Potato & Apple Coffee Cake
Who knew Costco sold sweet potatoes! OH! I’m in trouble now!
Actually, it’s just going to give me a chance to try Mary Frances’s sweet potato fries (OMG) and a few other sweet potato dishes. We make some to-die-for candied/brandied sweet potatoes around here, but I’m trying to branch out.
I’ve also been craving a great coffee cake. Every week for faculty and/or department meetings, we are served huge trays of some tasty-looking cinnamon rolls. They are huge! Thankfully, I’m not much of a breakfast eater, so for 7:30 AM meetings – I can easily ignore the cinnamon rolls by sitting as far away from them as possible. 🙂 However, my department has a grand total of 7 teachers. It’s harder to hide from the cinnamon rolls, donuts, coffee cakes, muffins, etc that come through the door into our meetings on those days. So I decided to make my own and come prepared to battle with the aromas.
I made this great coffee cake to have a sweet-bread taste beyond just a sweet topping to stop me from craving any of the sweet-looking dishes that my colleagues were munching on. This coffee cake was made on Monday night and lasted super well through the next few days. I kept it on the counter covered with foil. While it was still moist, I did put my piece(s) into the microwave to reheat before eating. NOT because of the bread/moisture, but because that’s how I prefer to eat my coffee cakes – warm!
Don’t worry if you are not a sweet potato fan. This coffee cake hides the mild flavor very well.
Sweet Potato & Apple Coffee Cake
Ingredients:
For the coffee cake:
1 stick of butter, room temperature
1/3 cup sugar
1 /3 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup (HEAPING) mashed sweet potato (or pumpkin)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cup your favorite GF flour mix with xanthan gum
1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum IF your mix doesn’t have it
1/4 cup warm milk
For the apple topping:
3-4 Braeburn apples
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons “pumpkin pie spice” OR
1 teaspoon cinnamon + 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg + 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
For the icing:
1/2 cup powered sugar
1-2 teaspoons lemon juice
Directions:
- Cream together butter and sugars.
- Add eggs (one at a time) until well incorporated.
- Add vanilla. Beat together and until fluffy (2-3 minutes)
- Add mashed sweet potato. Beat together again (2-3 minutes)
- In a small bowl, mix together dry ingredients (baking powder, salt, and GF flour). Add to wet ingredients until just blended – don’t over mix!
- Add 1/4 cup of warm milk until well-blended, but not over mixed.
- Spread onto silpat or parchment paper into a 1″ thick oblong (mine was about 12 inches wide and 9 inches long).
- Peel, core and slice the apples into 1/4″ wide slices.
- Sprinkle the apple slices with lemon juice and toss well.
- In a small bowl, combine brown sugar and spices.
- Sprinkle over apple slices and toss to coat evenly.
- Evenly spread the apple slices on top of the coffee cake batter.
- Bake at 350F for 35 – 45 minutes or until golden brown and a toothpick insert into the middle comes out clean.
- While the coffee cake bakes, stir together the powdered sugar and lemon juice.
- Allow the coffee cake to cool for about 10-15 minutes before drizzling with icing (or the icing will just melt into the apple topping).
The next time I make this, I will reduce the amount of sugar in the coffee cake as it was too sweet for my love and much more cake-like (sweet-wise) than I really wanted. It hit the spot though and got a lot of queries fo r the recipe from my gluten-eating buddies!
Enjoy!
Kate