Tomato....cake?

Wow! I can't believe it has been over a month since my last post. Time flew through the holidays, and we are just now getting back into the swing of things regarding our cooking project. Still putting off the pie crusts....

Because of the great success we had with the banana cake, I searched for a recipe in the same 'family'. And I found it, but it was with some trepidation that I announced to my kids that our next project would be something called 'tomato cake'. Faces were made all around, but I reminded everyone (myself included) that our European friends react the same way when we mention pumpkin pie. To them, putting pumpkin in a pie is inconceivable. So we set aside our prejudices about the proper use of tomatoes and forged ahead.

Since starting this project, I have come to expect and even to look forward to the fact that some sleuthing will be required to figure out the recipes, and tomato cake was no exception. The recipe as it appears on the card is as follows:

Tomato Cake

2 cup flour
1 1/2 tsp soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
Sift together
1 egg
1 cup sugar
1 cup raisins
1 cup tomato soup
1-2 cup butter

And that is it. No instructions of any kind except for 'sift together'. No mention of oven temperature. Nothing. But I'm learning! With my kids' help, we sifted all of the dry ingredients into a bowl which we then set aside. (and by the way, 1 teaspoon of nutmeg doesn't seem like much, but wow the aroma! We almost had to put the bowl in another room till baking it was so strong.) We then creamed the butter and sugar together (impressive, I know) then added the egg and the soup, and finally, the raisins. One word about the tomato soup. I made a mistake here, which I will remedy the next time this recipe is used. I bought Campbells Tomato Soup. Two problems with that: one, it contains high fructose corn syrup, which I believe to be one of the evils of the world and two, the soup is condensed, which I did not factor in. This, as I figured out later, was what accounted for the batter being much thicker than your standard cake batter - it was more the consistency of brownie batter. Because of that I baked it in a square glass pan for about 24 minutes at 350 degrees. (Or in a 'moderate' oven!) It turned out all right. Actually, it was delicious and reminded us a bit of pumpkin bread (!). But I think the consistency is wrong, due to the use of condensed soup.

I encourage you to try it yourself and let me know what you think! This recipe was the nicest surprise so far, as I have never encountered anything like it. Has anyone else made tomato soup? I'd love to know.

Happy New Year to all, and happy baking!