grandma's bean / nobue's apple sweet-potato cake

I guess this is old news now (given that Grandma and Grandpa went back to the UK almost 2 weeks ago), but while they were here, G and G helped us celebrate our younger Beansprout's birthday a bit early. Joel turned one on May 1, and as with Matthew's train cake, I made a cake and Grandma decorated it with fondant icing she brought in her suitcase.

Because Joel is a Bean, I did a search for any kind of bean cake I could find - not that beans would necessarily be in the cake, but I wanted a cake to look like a bean. I found this image from the Beansprouts Cafe's website, and Grandma based her decorating on it. (Beansprouts Cafe, by the way, is a way cool organic-foods place for kids that just happens to be in Middleton, Wisconsin, where my parents moved last year to be closer to my sister and her family. My mom dropped in to the cafe for a smoothie one time because it's only a few minutes' walk from home for her. Can't wait to take my own beans there at some point.)


I made an apple sweet-potato cake based on my friend Nobue's recipe (at the end of this post), and it turned out very moist and not too sweet - yum!

Here's Grandma hard at work:


For the cake, you'll need (and I doubled these amounts for an 8-inch/20 cm springform pan):

• 130 g flour (about 1 cup)
• 1 1/3 t. baking powder
• 17 g sugar (about 1/8 cup)
• one egg
  
• 2 T. honey
• 50 g butter (about 1/4 cup)
• 70 cc milk about 1/3 c.)
• 1 apple, peeled and chopped
• 1.5 sweet potatoes, peeled, cubed, and nuked in a bit of water till soft, then drained
  
• I also added a pinch of salt, about a teaspoon of cinnamon, a dash of nutmeg, 1 c. raisins, and 1 t. vanilla

Do this:

Preheat your oven to 180 C/350 F, combine all ingredients, pour into a greased and floured 8-inch/20-cm round pan (or equivalent size in another shape), and bake for about 30 minutes. Easy!

Thanks, Nobue, for the recipe, and thanks, Grandma, for decorating it so cutely! Joel loved it.