Grandma's Famous Sheet Cake -- The Recipe That Tastes Like Someone Who Came Before You

The week between Christmas and New Year's is a strange no-man's-land. The daycare is closed until January 2nd and I have nothing to do but exist in my apartment, which is harder than it sounds when you've spent your whole life being told where to go and what time to be there. Structure was the foster system's one reliable gift. Take it away and I'm a girl on a couch with leftover ham and too much silence.

So I cooked. I opened the Edna Lewis cookbook Gloria gave me and read it like a novel. Edna Lewis grew up in Freetown, Virginia — a community founded by her grandfather and other freed slaves — and she writes about food the way Gloria talks about food: like it's memory, like it's people, like every dish is a story about someone who came before you. She writes about spring ham and wild mushrooms and spoonbread and things I've never eaten and places I've never been, but I understood every word because she's writing about what I already know: that food is how you say I was here, I mattered, I fed the people I loved.

Wednesday I made her sweet potato casserole recipe, which is different from Gloria's. Edna Lewis uses nutmeg and a little bourbon. I don't have bourbon — I'm eighteen and also broke — so I used vanilla extract and a prayer. Mashed the sweet potatoes with butter and brown sugar and nutmeg and poured it into a baking dish and topped it with pecans from the bag James gave me from his friend's tree. Baked it until the top was set and the pecans were toasted and the whole apartment smelled like something worth coming home to. It was good. Different from Gloria's — less sweet, more earthy — and I ate half of it standing at the counter before I remembered my rule about the table. I sat down. I ate the rest. I thought about Edna Lewis and Gloria and the women who write things down so other women can find them.

New Year's Eve I stayed home. I lit the pine candle. I ate leftover casserole and read more of the cookbook and at midnight I stood at my window and listened to fireworks somewhere in the distance and thought: I made it. One whole year of being a person in the world — graduated, employed, housed, fed. The year didn't break me. The next one won't either. I'm going to learn every recipe in that book. I'm going to cook my way into the person I'm becoming. Whoever she is, she eats at the table, and the food is good, and she made it herself.

The sweet potato casserole that got me through that New Year’s Eve felt like proof of something — that I could feed myself well, that the kitchen was mine, that a recipe found at the right moment can become its own kind of landmark. So when I went back to make it again, properly this time, I built it into a sheet cake: easier to share, easier to slice, the same earthy sweetness but with a brown sugar pecan glaze that goes on warm and sets into something that tastes like it took more effort than it did. Here’s how I made it.

Sweet Potato Sheet Cake with Brown Sugar Pecan Glaze

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 35 min | Total Time: 55 min | Servings: 16

Ingredients

• 2 cups mashed sweet potato (about 2 medium, roasted and cooled)
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon fine salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 3 large eggs, room temperature
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup whole milk
• 1 cup roughly chopped pecans, divided

For the Brown Sugar Glaze:

• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 1/4 cup whole milk
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
• Pinch of fine salt

Instructions

1. Prep the oven and pan. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease an 18x13-inch rimmed sheet pan (half sheet pan) with butter and line with parchment. Grease the parchment as well.
2. Whisk the dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. Set aside.
3. Cream butter and sugars. In a large bowl, beat softened butter with both sugars until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides as needed.
4. Add eggs and sweet potato. Beat in eggs one at a time, then mix in vanilla extract and mashed sweet potato. The batter will look slightly broken — that’s fine.
5. Combine wet and dry. Add the flour mixture in three additions, alternating with the milk (flour, milk, flour, milk, flour), mixing on low just until each addition disappears. Do not overmix.
6. Fold in pecans and bake. Fold in 3/4 cup of the chopped pecans. Spread batter evenly into the prepared pan. Bake 28–35 minutes, until the top is set and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
7. Make the glaze. While the cake is in its final minutes, melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add brown sugar and milk, whisking constantly, and bring to a gentle boil for 1 minute. Remove from heat, whisk in vanilla and salt, then whisk in powdered sugar until smooth.
8. Glaze the warm cake. As soon as the cake comes out of the oven, pour glaze evenly over the top and spread gently with an offset spatula. Scatter remaining 1/4 cup pecans over the glaze immediately. Let the cake set for at least 15 minutes before cutting.
9. Serve at the table. Cut into squares and serve warm or at room temperature. This cake keeps well, covered, at room temperature for up to 3 days — and it tastes even better on day two.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 390 | Protein: 4g | Fat: 18g | Carbs: 55g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 215mg