Full of spiced cinnamon and sweet potato flavor, these marshmallow frosted sweet potato cupcakes are like Thanksgiving dessert in a cupcake!
Fluffy sweet potato cupcakes
Soft, moist, and absolutely delightful, you really cannot go wrong with these homemade frosted sweet potato cupcakes.
They are also a great option for Friendsgiving dinners, because the cupcakes are easy to transport, and guests absolutely love them!
If you wish to take it one step further and stuff the cupcakes with marshmallow fluff or cranberry jelly after baking, by all means go ahead.
Readers also love this Crustless Pumpkin Pie
Step by step recipe video
Above, watch the sweet potato cupcake recipe video
Sweet potato cupcake ingredients
The recipe calls for sweet potato, cinnamon, pure vanilla extract, milk of choice or water, flour, oil, vinegar, sugar, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and ground ginger.
For oil free cupcakes, replace the oil in the recipe with an equal amount of additional sweet potato puree, Greek yogurt, or milk of choice.
The cupcakes work with spelt flour or loosely measured white flour or gluten free all purpose flour. I have not tried using almond flour, coconut flour, rice flour, or whole wheat flour here and cannot recommend those.
Vinegar and baking soda cause the cupcake to rise, much like in the popular volcano science experiment. So no eggs are required.
For vegan sweet potato cupcakes, simply use water or your favorite plant based milk.
If you’re looking for flourless cupcakes, try these Keto Chocolate Cupcakes.
What type of sweet potatoes?
The recipe works with pretty much any variety of sweet potato or yam, including jewel, garnet, purple, white, and Japanese sweet potatoes.
You can use roasted sweet potato puree (here’s how to cook sweet potatoes) or canned sweet potato puree, which should be available near the pumpkin at many regular grocery stores and health food stores.
And if you wish to substitute canned pumpkin or butternut squash puree, that is fine too. Of course, they will not be sweet potato cupcakes anymore!
How to make sweet potato cupcakes
Start by whisking the sweet potato puree, water, vanilla extract, vinegar, and optional oil in a large mixing bowl.
Let this sit for ten minutes, while you preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and line a cupcake tin with nine liners.
Stir all remaining ingredients into the large bowl to form a cupcake batter. Scoop the batter into the prepared liners, going about two thirds of the way up.
Bake for eighteen minutes on the oven’s center rack. Then let cool before frosting.
If you can wait, I like to refrigerate the healthy sweet potato cupcakes overnight, very loosely covered. The liners peel off easily the next day, and there’s no risk of the frosting melting upon hitting a warm cupcake.
You can make mini sweet potato cupcakes in you prefer. Decrease the baking time to nine minutes and bake the cupcakes in lined mini muffin tins.
The recipe was adapted from my Pumpkin Cupcakes and Pumpkin Muffins
Marshmallow Frosting
Feel free to frost the cupcakes in any way your heart desires.
Try cream cheese frosting, softened almond butter, coconut butter, chocolate or vanilla frosting, or a simple dusting of powdered sugar.
I topped the cupcakes with the following homemade marshmallow buttercream icing:
Using beaters or a stand mixer, whip the following until it turns into a thick buttercream frosting: 1 cup butter or plant based butter, 3 cups powdered sugar or erythritol, 1 tsp pure vanilla extract, and 1/8 tsp marshmallow extract.
Sweet Potato Cupcakes
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup sweet potato puree
- 1/2 cup water or milk of choice
- 2 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1 tbsp white vinegar or cider vinegar
- 3 tbsp oil or additional sweet potato puree
- 1 cup flour (spelt, white, or gf all purpose)
- 1/2 cup sugar or coconut sugar
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- optional 1/2 tsp ground ginger
InstructionsÂ
- To make sweet potato cupcakes, preheat the oven to 350 F. Line a cupcake tin. Whisk first 5 ingredients, and let sit at least 10 minutes. You can sift remaining ingredients in a separate bowl while you wait or add them to the first bowl after time is up, then stir to form a batter. Scoop into the liners, about 2/3 of the way up. Bake 18 minutes, then let cool. These taste even better the next day, and the liners peel off easily after a day as well.View Nutrition Facts
Video
Notes
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I’ve never been a fan of marshmallows on sweet potatoes – I’ve always found it a combination that is way too sweet to be considered part of dinner. But sweet potato cupcakes with marshmallow frosting sounds much more suitable.
And they’re vegan! Love!
Pinned.
Man, now even you have gotten on the coconut milk frosting train! 😀 I really need to try that out. Just have to find some full fat canned coconut milk without all of the lovely *sarcasm* ingredients!
I know that in the past mentioning charities has put you in some hot water… which I still don’t understand, but I personally love both your posts and introductions that are non-food related. And I don’t think I’m the only one who feels that way 🙂
these look AMAZING!
alexandriafini.com
These sound delicious. I love sweet potatoes and am happy eating them any and every way possible. I most often roast them (http://taplatt.wordpress.com/2013/01/15/recipe-roasted-root-vegetables/), but I also love these pancakes (http://taplatt.wordpress.com/2013/03/03/recipe-sweet-potato-pancakes/), and these biscuits are a revelation (http://taplatt.wordpress.com/2013/03/02/recipe-sweet-potato-rosemary-biscuits/)
This looks like such a delicious recipe! As I am not a huge fan sweet potato, do you think this would work with pumpkin? The frosting looks just gorgeous! Thank you for everything, Katie! <3
Yes
AWESOME! So glad to see the marshmallow flavoring is vegan and doesn’t contain any artificial flavorings or junk! These sound great! Wish i wasn’t allergic to sweet potatoes!
You can sub with puréed carrot or butternut squash
A little different in flavour, but still pretty close and similar in texture
I’ve tried sweet potatoes in brownies and although the brownies were delicious, the sweet potatoes were masked by the chocolate. I love how the sweet potato flavour rings through in your cupcakes – so creative!
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! Sweet potatoes are one of my all-time favorite foods; this sounds ridiculous, but I was so excited when I saw the title of this post that I got a little teary-eyed 🙂
One of my favorite sweet potato recipes is actually a breakfast recipe – I usually only eat about half of a medium sweet potato at a time, so I always end up with these halves of cooked sweet potatoes in my fridge. So one morning, I decided to mash up one of these leftover halves with 2Tbsp peanut butter, a sprinkle of cinnamon (actually, a lot of cinnamon, because I am a cinnamon addict), a pinch of sugar, and about a cup and a half of plain Greek yogurt. The result was a thick, creamy yet magically fluffy, and absolutely mind-blowingly delicious breakfast. I added a cup of Chex cereal, too, for a contrasting texture. So, so good, and it keeps me full for hours!
I love eating sweet potatoes baked. I top them with black beans, corn, guacamole, and sautéed spinach! Sometimes a little spicy red pepper hummus too! Mmmmm!
Katie, these look great! Looks like a yummy way to use some seasonal produce 🙂
I love throwing a nice glob of peanut butter or almond butter on my sweet potatoes, followed by a healthy sprinkling of cinnamon. So so good.