Sweet Potato Tea Cake With Meringue Recipe (2024)

I would love to make this GF. Is there a mix you would use in this recipe or is a nice mix of light flours and starches ok? Any recommendations for doing this?

What is the volume and weight of the cooked sweet potato? In case you would like to substitute canned.

Not enough meringue for this cake.Same cake recipe appears in Sunset magazine but with more meringue. 3 eggs, 2/3c sugar and tsp of vanilla, which would make a cake that appears more like the picture. Recipe also has a bit different technique for the meringue preparation.https://www.sunset.com/recipe/sweet-potato-tea-cake-with-meringue

Someone has seriously messed with the revisiting of Tartine’s original Pumpkin Tea Cake. There should be no orange juice in sight, and the meringue ingredients should be: 3 egg whites, 2/3 cup sugar, and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract. See the recipe as given on Bon Appetit’s website for an authentic list of ingredients, and more detailed instructions as to method for both the cake and the topping, a la Tartine.

For those wanting to simplify their lives, the original Tartine creation used 1 cup canned pumpkin and just baked on 2 tablespoons of sugar for a sweet, crackly top. Sources: Sunset magazine, and Serious Eats website (see their recipe for Pumpkin Tea Cake).

I wonder if you could do this with pumpkin, fresh or canned, instead of sweet potatoes?

Best sweet potato cake i've found. I do think it is fine with half as much sugar. And purple sweet potatoes make for a really nice look.

Made this to the letter and it needed an extra 25 minutes or so of baking time. Also agree with the person who said to double (or even triple) the meringue. The specified amount isn't nearly enough, certainly not to make this look like the photo! But this is a DELICIOUS cake. The meringue topping is a game changer!

Use 2 egg whites for meringue, then use 2 whole eggs and 2 egg yolks in the batter.

Echoing that this took much longer at 325 than indicated — another 20 or 25 minutes, probably.

I find Bob's Red Mill GF 1:1 BAKING Flour to be a perfect substitute in most recipes. Just make sure to buy the the 1:1 baking.

To make it gluten free just use gf flour!
Works fine.

I make my own gluten-free flour mix with sorghum flour + white rice flour + sweet rice flour (also known as glutinous rice flour because it is sticky). Equal amounts of sorghum and white rice flours + a few tablespoons of sweet rice flour, and a few teaspoons of corn starch. Works very well. What I do not like about mixes is the addition of xanthan gum, which makes everything very sticky and retains too much moisture. Also mixes have a high salt content. Fresh baking powder is a must.

Not enough meringue with one egg for this cake, would increase to 3 eggs and 50g of sugar (a light sweet topping compliments the cake)I substituted butter for vegetable oil, and it worked well. Overall the cake is very good, but the sweet potato really only adds a deep orange color. The flavor of the potato is lost in the cinnamon and nutmeg flour, which makes the cake decidedly taste like pumpkin spice (which is a good thing!)

Hi I bake regularly with gluten free flours. I would suggest using mostly sorghum and if you would like you can use for part of the flour either white or brown rice. But sorghum on its own works great for baking.

Doubled the meringue. Best part of the cake.

I'm realizing as I finally add my notes to this recipe that others have found something similar. It took over 20 minutes longer than the 1 hour 15 minute baking time. I used Bob's Red Mill 1-1 gluten free flour. I also roasted the sweet potatoes, which reduced the water content - I found the batter to be extremely wet. One egg white's worth of meringue is not nearly enough, so I doubled that, and added cream of tartar to the meringue. That said, this is a really delicious tea bread.

Doubled meringue, baked for 1h 30 min, and subbed Bobs Red Mill 1:1 gluten free flour. Also tented with foil about an hour in once the meringue got uniformly golden brown. Turned out spectacular - so moist and the topping is beautiful. Next time I'll give myself parchment paper strips to help lift it out.

Halved it and put it in and 8x8 - not as tall and beautiful of course but quite delicious. Would reel back the nutmeg a smidge and it definitely took awhile to bake. I recommend tenting after 20 minutes minimum because that meringue gets toasted! This cake turned out super moist and not too dense. Very pleased overall.

Delicious flavor of sweet potato and spices. A noteworthy tea cake! Baked after about 20 minutes more than the recipe suggested. I wondered if I’d made an error along the way but see that many reviewers noted the same baking time experience. The merengue topping is a delightful contrasting texture and sweetness. I doubled the merengue and next time I will consider tripling the quantity—that’s how much I look forward to it.

It took 3 hrs to bake, most of it at 350deg. It was still quite moist after 3 hours. Still way too sweet, even with 2/3 of the sugar. Wasn’t worth the effort. The amount of meringue is more than enough for the loaf. I would prep some of the cake ingredients before making the meringue so that the meringue doesn’t deflate too much while making the cake. Worst recipe I’ve made in 3 years of NYT Cooking.

TIP - if interested in making this, find the original in Tartine A Classic Revisted cookbook. Measurements/cooking technique to prep the meringue topping are different from this adaptation. NYT version calls for less egg whites and omits a crucial step which resulted in a less voluminous, billowy meringue topping. Also, the total bake time for the cake in the book is 1 1/2 hrs. NYT version is 75 min BUT I had to bake it for 1hr 45 min for the cake to fully cook, but the top was burnt.

I made a gluten-free version with Bob's 1-1 g-f flour. It took about 20 more minutes to cook and is quite moist. One note - I always take my time in assembling the bread part, so it makes more sense to whip the meringues at the end so they are fresh and stiff.

Absolutely killer treat. Took other commented recommendations and tripled the meringue, and ended up adding 32 minutes of bake time before it was done. And I didn't have nutmeg on hand, so I substituted allspice. So, so tasty, it's forgiven if you end up eating it in one night...by yourself

This cake was moist and delicious! I have just a few notes.1. The cook time was perfect for my oven. Though I had to tent the cake halfway through baking to avoid burnt meringue.2. We used roasted sweet potatoes which have more flavor and pronounced sugar so I only added a quarter cup of white sugar and it was plenty sweet.3. We added the zest of an orange which perfumed the cake nicely.4. If a recipe calls for warm spices, my partner and I will add some cardamom. Always add cardamom.

Used a large sweet potato and otherwise followed recipe instructions and this yielded a giant overflowing mess in my oven. Ended up removing meringue topping and eating separately and then transferring the whole thing to a larger dish to finish cooking. Texture was super dense but that’s probably due to the excess potato.

This was ok. I made it with organic pumpkin puree instead. The texture is moist and the flavor is fine. I used four whites for the meringue, and made it Swiss style for structure. The top started to burn in the oven so I had to reduce temperature to 300 and bake for additional 30 minutes. Still, I have no idea why I insist on using pumpkin--or sweet potato for that matter--in a cake. It just doesn't make sense. The meringue turns mushy immediately, so forget about making in advance.

I’m considering trying this for Thanksgiving. I’m thinking instead of the meringue, it would be fun to top with marshmallow fluff after baking the loaf and broil for some nostalgia and a nod to the sweet potatoes with mini marshmallows from my childhood. Has anyone tried something similar?

Subbed 1/4 cup tahini for 1/4 cup oil and added layer of honeyed tahini in middle. Skipped meringue but put in chocolate chunks. Amazing.

For our first try, I 4x'd the merengue amount as my egg whites were tiny. We also used a gluten free mix. We found that our merengue didn't hold up great when we made it before the batter, and looked a little clumpy when spooning it on.When it came time for baking, the loaf needed an additional 45-60 minutes to fully bake. The density of the sweet potato and gluten free mix made it really hard to cook in the suggested time. This made our merengue dissolve - great taste, no peaked merengue.