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This decadent sweet potato chocolate cake is the perfect way to satisfy your sweet tooth, and still feel good about it. My chocolate sweet potato cake is super moist and rich. Plus, it’s an easy-to-make healthy vegan dessert you can serve up as a treat, snack, or even breakfast!
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Table of Contents
- Why You’ll Love this Chocolate Sweet Potato Cake Recipe!
- Ingredients for Sweet Potato Chocolate Cake
- How To Make Vegan Sweet Potato Cake
- Toni’s Recipe Tips for Vegan Loaf Cake
- FAQs for Chocolate Sweet Potato Cake
- Variations on a Sweet Potato Loaf Cake
- More Yummy Loaf Cakes to Try!
- Sweet Potato Chocolate Cake Recipe
Why You’ll Love this Chocolate Sweet Potato Cake Recipe!
Looking for ways you can sneak veggies into vegan desserts? Sweet potatoes and vegan chocolate pair again in this chocolate cake, similar to my fudgy sweet potato brownies. It’s a combo that the whole family will love! The delicious flavor in this vegan loaf cake will fool even the pickiest eaters. Meanwhile, you can feel great about feeding the kids (or yourself!) a slice of cake, even for breakfast!
This vegan chocolate cake with sweet potatoes uses easy-to-find pantry staples. It’s a budget-friendly treat that’s easy to make ahead of time. That way you can enjoy it throughout the week as a breakfast treat, a lunch box surprise, or even an after-dinner dessert.
For more guilt-free easy vegan desserts, try these banana zucchini cookies, chocolate zucchini cake, pumpkin stuffed dates, or a decadent chocolate avocado pudding.
Ingredients for Sweet Potato Chocolate Cake
There are no big surprises in this sweet potato cake. You should be able to pick them up easily in a quick trip to the grocery store. See the grocery list in the recipe card below!
- Sweet potatoes: Cooked sweet potatoes are the secret ingredient that gives this cake its super dense fudgy texture.
- Plant-based milk: Almond, soy, oat, cashew, and coconut milk are all good options.
- Maple syrup: This liquid sweetener adds sweetness but you can also use date or agave syrup.
- Oat flour: Makes a great base in this sweet potato cake recipe and holds everything together.
- Cocoa powder: Go for unsweetened cocoa powder for the best flavor.
- Cinnamon: Adds a hint of spice that works great with the vegan chocolate and sweet potato.
- Baking soda and salt: For flavor and texture.
- Vegan chocolate chips: Adds more rich chocolate flavor.
- Chia seeds and crushed almonds: Both ingredients are optional but they do boost the nutrition and add a bit of texture to the cake.
How To Make Vegan Sweet Potato Cake
Once you get the sweet potatoes cooked, it’s super easy to make this vegan chocolate loaf cake.
Preparation Steps:
- To get started, preheat the oven to 400 degrees F and boil the diced sweet potatoes in boiling water in a saucepan for 15 to 20 minutes or until fork-tender.
Step 1: When the sweet potatoes finish cooking, remove the skin and puree in a blender or food processor until smooth.
Step 2: After that, combine the sweet potato puree, plant-based milk, and maple syrup in a large mixing bowl and mix together. Next, add the oat flour, cocoa powder, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, and vegan chocolate chips. If you are using the chia seeds and almonds add them in at this time.
Step 3: Mix everything together until a dough is formed.
Step 4: Place the dough in a greased loaf pan and bake in the oven for 35 to 40 minutes or until a fork comes out clean and the top is hardened a bit. Finally, remove from the oven and allow the vegan chocolate loaf cake to cool completely! Optional but recommended: drizzle with nut butter of your choice!
Toni’s Recipe Tips for Vegan Loaf Cake
- Want a fudgier loaf? Underbake the vegan sweet potato cake slightly.
- Serving this vegan sweet potato cake. It tastes even better topped with your favorite nut butter.
- Store in the refrigerator. The sweet potatoes in this recipe mean leftovers need to be stored in the refrigerator.
FAQs for Chocolate Sweet Potato Cake
Yes and no. If you prefer to bake the sweet potatoes whole instead of boiling, it works great. But it does take longer. I don’t recommend roasting cut sweet potatoes as they may develop crispy edges that won’t blend up smooth. Although baking sweet potatoes does retain more of the nutrients than boiling them.
I recommend not, as the skins will not puree as smoothly, affecting the texture of the cake.
Variations on a Sweet Potato Loaf Cake
- Swap the sweet potatoes. If you don’t have sweet potatoes, try some pumpkin!
- Bake muffins instead! Pour the batter into a muffin tin and decrease the baking time to 12-15 minutes.
- Add some walnuts. Instead of almonds or chia!
More Yummy Loaf Cakes to Try!
Vegan Desserts
Vegan Lemon Loaf Cake
Vegan Desserts
Coffee and Walnut Loaf Cake
Vegan Breakfasts
Vegan Lemon Blueberry Loaf
![completed Vegan Fruit Cake [Fruit Loaf] on a white surface](https://plantbasedonabudget.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Vegan-Fruit-Cake-Plant-Based-on-a-Budget-45-378x378.jpg)
Vegan Desserts
Vegan Fruit Cake [Fruit Loaf]
If you tried this sweet potato chocolate cake recipe or any other recipe on my blog, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how it went in the 📝 comments below. Thanks!
Photos by Alfonso Revilla
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Sweet Potato Chocolate Cake
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Ingredients
- 2 cups sweet potatoes
- ¼ cup of plant-based milk
- ½ to ¾ cup of maple syrup
- 1 ½ cups of oat flour (ground oats)
- ½ cup + 2 Tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder
- ½ Tablespoon of cinnamon
- 2 teaspoons of baking soda
- ½ teaspoon of salt
- ¼ cup of vegan chocolate chips optional
- ¼ cup chia seeds to blend in optional
- ¼ cup of crushed almonds optional
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Boil 2 medium diced sweet potatoes in a saucepan for 15 to 20 minutes or until fork-tender. Remove skin and puree in a blender or food processor until smooth.
- In a large bowl, combine sweet potato puree, plant-based milk, and maple syrup. Add in oat flour, cocoa powder, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, vegan chocolate chips, and chia seeds and almonds (if using).
- Combine until dough is formed.
- Place the dough in a greased bread loaf pan and bake in the oven for 35 to 40 minutes or until a fork comes out clean and the top is hardened a bit. Let cool completely and enjoy topped with nut butter of choice!
Notes
- Want a fudgier loaf? Underbake the vegan sweet potato cake slightly.
- Serving vegan chocolate cake. It tastes even better topped with your favorite nut butter.
- Store in the refrigerator. The sweet potatoes in this recipe mean leftovers need to be stored in the refrigerator.
![completed EASY Chocolate Depression Cake [Wacky Cake] sliced against a white surface](https://plantbasedonabudget.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/36-Crazy-Cake-Plant-Based-on-a-Budget-1-2-378x378.jpg)
Made this for the first time yesterday, and LOVED it! Great texture and taste, this recipe is definitely a keeper in my dessert rotation 🙂
That’s so awesome to hear! It’s a yummy cake!
What size serving does this recipe for sweet potato cake have 34 g of carbohydrates? I need to watch my carb intake,
If you divide it into 10 pieces, each piece should roughly have 34 g of carbs! 🙂
Can you use pumpkin purée instead? How much?
Pumpkin should work too!
Can this recipe be made with regular flour or almond flour?
Hi! We at Plant-Based on a Budget haven’t tried that out yet so can’t guarantee the results of either so please let us know how it turns out if you do 🙂
I’ve sub’d almond four for the oat flour with a 1:1 ratio and the recipe turned out great. A little more dense than when I used oat flour, but no difference in taste that I could tell. Still delicious!
Love that! Thanks for sharing your customization! 🙂
I love this with a couple of almond milk. Perfect breakfast on Saturday morning!
The perfect pair!!!
Hi, do you measure the 2 cups of sweet potatoes before cooking or after puréing? Thanks!
Before pureeing 🙂 You can measure out 2 cups diced! 🙂
Delicious! Super fudgy and healthy, too!
It’s got all the fudge and all the health in one!!
This is so fudgy and delicious! Will definitely be baking with sweet potatoes more often, such a good idea!
There’s nothing like a sweet potato-based dessert! They come out so good minus all the extra added sugar!
Omg this looks amazing! Definitely mouthwatering
You’d love this sweet potato goodie!
How long do you think the cooking time is if we make this as muffins?
About 12-15 minutes 🙂
OOOOH! I will be making this recipe but I will probably add chopped ginger. Also, staying with sweet potato recipes, I think a vegan cream cheese frosting made from white sweet potatoes (lemon juice, maple syrup, etc) would complete the package.
Oh wow! Vegan cream cheese from white sweet potatoes sounds amazing!!
This loaf is absolutely perfect! I love desserts with veggies! Perfect way to add additional nutrients to your diet!
The hidden veggie recipes always appeal to me too! So good!
I love sweet potatoes but have never thought of using them to make chocolate cake. I’m always looking for healthy versions of my favourite foods that don’t compromise on taste or texture so this is perfect!
The sweet potatoes provide such an amazing texture!! So so sweet and delicious!
This was my first time using sweet potatoes in a cake so I was a little skeptical but it totally works! Delicious and the texture is spot on. 🙂
Love that you gave it a shot! It’s surprisingly such a goodie!
I’ve been loving sweet potatoes lately and this chocolate cake did the trick! So sweet and delicious!