Holiday Cooking - Blogger Style!

Sweet Potato-Raisin Coffee Can Cake is a Thanksgiving tradition for our family, and it’s so tasty that it won second place at the Central Alabama Fair a few years ago.

While I claimed the prize, I can't claim the recipe. It came from my mother-in-law, who was one of the great, old-fashioned cooks of the South! I'm not sure where she got her recipe, but I noticed a similar cake (or bread) in the Oct/Nov Taste of Home magazine.

I first tried this cinnamon-seasoned delight on an autumn trip to the North Georgia mountains more than two decades ago. Mama G baked two cakes in coffee cans, wrapped the slices tightly in foil, and we snacked all the way to Dahlonega. Naturally, I HAD to have this recipe as well as a bunch of others she spoiled us with!

Now, you are probably wondering where the catfish went! Well, since this is part of Overwhelmed with Joy's Holiday Cooking, Blogger Style swap, I figured I would share a dessert that nobody has yet to turn down, and oh my goodness, it goes fine with fish!

Sweet Potato-Raisin Coffee Can Cake

1½ cups sugar
½ cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
⅓ cup water
1 ¾ cups plain flour
1 ½ teaspoon cinnamon (I double this amount.)
1 teaspoon soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup cooked, mashed sweet potatoes
½ cup chopped nuts (I prefer walnuts.)
½ cup raisins

Combine sugar, oil, eggs, water. Beat at medium speed. Combine next five ingredients. Add to egg mixture, mixing just until moistened. Stir in potatoes, nuts and raisins. Pour into two greased and floured coffee cans. Cans should be about half full. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

NOTE: Small loaf pans work if you don’t have coffee cans. I often double this recipe and purchase four small foil pans and give these cakes as Christmas gifts. The cake is also good without the raisins and nuts. My children liked it better plain, so I filled one can with plain batter and the other with nuts ‘n raisins batter.

I mentioned Taste of Home’s sweet potato bread recipe. It is almost exactly like this one, except it adds more spices: nutmeg, allspice and cloves as well as 6 tablespoons of orange juice. The recipe is baked as one big cake in a larger loaf pan, also at 350 degrees for 1 hour. Enjoy!