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
Instructions
- 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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Hi. Can I substitute the milk for a vegan alternative or will that ruin the recipe?
This is a very late reply, so I’m sorry if it’s no longer helpful! Katie is a vegan and when she says “milk of choice,” she means that you can use almond milk, soymilk, coconut milk, skim milk, whatever works for you and your diet. I think I used skim milk or vanilla almond milk when I made these, and they turned out great!
These were sweet and moist, no frosting necessary! I used sweet potatoes that I had boiled and mashed up. Thanks for a delicious recipe.
For the frosting, you can also get an awesome marshmallow flavor by using Mallow Root Honey. My local farmer’s market has honey from a variety of plants and each honey tastes different. The Mallow Root has a definite marshmallow flavor and is all natural and yum. If you refrigerate your frosting, it should still stay pretty thick, even with the liquid sweetener. Or you could use it as the sweetener in your cupcakes – marshmallowy goodness all around!
Hi Katie, If I use soy or almond milk will this recipe be vegan? Thanks
Yes all of Katie’s recipes are vegan as long as you use nondairy milk.
These are incredible -thanks so much for the fantastic recipe!
Thank you so much for trying them 🙂
I made these vegan cupcakes that are delicious and moist. I added pumpkin pie spice along with the ginger. It made the cupcake have a nice spice flavor. No sweet potato flavor at all. Great to help kids and adults eat their veggies.
Delicious! Moist and tasty.
I made mine with unsweetened vanilla almond milk and replaced the sugar with lakanto monk brown.
Amazing.
Seriously sooo good. I have made these 3 times this week for my kids without the frosting and they can’t get enough of them.
I made these in a double recipe and baked in mini Bundt pans. Instead of water, I took your advice and used Xtra puree. They turned out so cute and I’m sure delicious. The batter was yummy, at least. Thank you for offering this recipe. Just the ticket for a friend’s birthday.♥️
Wow! These sweet potato cupcakes are orgasmic! Almost too good to share;) (I’ve doubled the recipe as it doesn’t quite give 12 cupcakes evenly for me.)