Garnet Yam Cake With Brown Sugar Icing

This recipe is an Oldie but Goodie. My son Mitchell’s favorite, this moist bundt cake covered in a thickly drizzled maple flavor icing is beautiful on the cake plate and delicious. It is the perfect dairy-free desert for autumn occasions, from Rosh Hashanah, to Thanksgiving, to Chanukah.

Cake

2 cups of mashed Garnet yam ^[1]

2 & 3/4 cups all purpose flour

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 & 3/4 teaspoons powdered ginger

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

4 extra large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

Margarine or non stick spray for greasing the pan
12 cup Bundt pan

Icing

2 cups sifted powdered sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar, packed

1/2 cup Rich’s dairy-free whip ^[2]

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted margarine

1/2 teaspoon vanilla  extract

Wash the Garnet yams and bake in a preheated 400º oven for 2 hours. I choose the fattest, unblemished yams I can find and place them in an aluminum foil tin to catch the oozing sugar droppings from the yams as they bake.  2 to 4 large yams will yield the 2 cups of yam needed for the recipe. You can just eat any left over with dinner. Cool the yams and scoop out the bright orange pulp. Measure the yam and mash with your gloved hands or a potato masher. Place the yams in the bowl of your mixer.

Preheat oven to 325º and place the oven rack in the middle of the oven. Combine the flour, cinnamon, ginger, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a medium bowl and set aside.  Place the mixing bowl in the mixer and beat yams until smooth on medium low speed. Next, add the sugar and oil to the yams, and starting on the lowest setting, beat until smooth.  Add the eggs 2 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the flour mixture and blend on low speed until just combined. Stir in the vanilla.

Grease a 12-cup Bundt pan, making sure to get the grease into every nook and cranny of the design for an easy release. Fill the prepared pan only 2/3 full. If your Bundt pan is less than 12 cups, (many of the newer designs are not 12 cups) and you have left over batter, you can grease and fill individual small loaf pans with the extra batter. Bake cake until a tester comes out clean, about 1 hour and 5 minutes or less if your pan is smaller. Cool cake in the pan on a rack for 15 minutes. Invert and turn cake out onto the rack to finish cooling.

At this point, you can wrap the cake well and freeze it for up to two weeks, then defrost and ice just before your occasion. For the icing, sift the powdered sugar into medium bowl. Stir the brown sugar, Riche’s Whip, and margarine in a small heavy bottomed saucepan over medium low heat until margarine melts and the sugar dissolves. Increase heat to medium high and bring brown sugar mix to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer 3 minutes, occasionally stirring and swirling pan. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla. Pour the brown sugar syrup over the powdered sugar. Whisk icing until smooth and lightened in color. It will be very liquid. Cool the icing until luke warm, whisking occasionally. It will thicken as it cools. When the icing is not quite cold and  falls like thick ribbons from a spoon,  slowly pour it over the top of the cake very thickly. The icing will drip down the sides in thick rivers. I pour directly from the mixing bowl in a back and forth motion slowly rotating the cake as I go. Let the iced cake stand for at least one hour before serving.  It keeps refrigerated for two days.