I made a recipe for this cake from Sweetapolita with really high hopes, and it was a disaster!
It came out like gross sweet potato bread pudding, and the sides shrunk in as well. I followed the recipe as written even though the 2 pounds of mashed sweet potato seemed like a lot. I know I baked it long enough too. What do you suppose is the problem?
http://sweetapolita.com/2011/10/autumn-delight-cake/[url][/url]

That's what I thought, but wanted to stick to the rule of making the recipe without alterations for the first time! I should have trusted my instinct on this one. Thanks BakingIrene. You are invaluable on this site. Actually, I have another question. I have a trusted yellow cake recipe that I was thinking of adding sweet potato and spice to. I think it could bear the extra moisture. Is it worth a go, or should I just try the other recipe with less purée?

It's hard to make a general comment about a good yellow cake recipe. Spice is OK of course.

If your recipe had milk, I would half the milk and add the original milk volume as sweet potato puree. Instead of 1 cup milk, that would be 1/2 cup milk and 1 cup sweet potato puree. That would add moisture and not upset the ratios too much.

I have done this with muffins, adding leftover pumpkin pie filling mixture to a batter that was clearly to dry when I mixed it...on Thanksgiving morning when no grocery store was open for a milk run. Using no other changes it worked GREAT.

Thanks again. I think I will give it a go.

I made that cake last year without problems (although I did have some issues with the toasted marshmallow filling....but I think that was my fault). It is a very dense and moist cake, but I didn't think of it as pudding-like. And - I thought it was delicious! But, you do have to like dense, banana bread like cakes.