Spirited Fresh Tomato Cake
I woke up this morning knowing what I needed to write about. I came to realize that I have never been alone in this grief process. So many moms before me have gone through it. I recall an old high school chum named Jeff who died at age 17 of leukemia. Jeff was funny and smart and a strong competitive swimmer. He loved my friend, Donna. I remember visiting him in the hospital to say good-bye and feeling so sad for him and for her. I don’t remember his mom, but I can’t imagine what she was going through. She should know that her son and my friend, Jeff, hasn’t been forgotten.
And then there is Betty. Betty is the mother of 5 kids including one of my best friends, Carol. I’ve known Betty for 30 years. We have a lot in common. Betty and I love to garden, we loved playing BUNCO together for a good 10 years and we both love Carol to the moon and back. We also both lost a son.
Betty is now 93 years old and on a recent visit back to my old hometown I stopped by to check in on her. Betty affirmed what I already knew: a mom never stops grieving the loss of a child. It has been 56 years since she lost her oldest child, Robert. We never really talked about it until this visit. And then she showed me an old photo of Robert, so handsome displaying a fish he had just caught…and in the same frame….right next to her son…was mine. My heart melted. We decided our boys were good together probably catching fish off the banks of heaven.
Remember that old-fashioned tomato cake recipe made with that processed canned soup? Pitch that and make this especially if you have an abundance of vine ripened garden tomatoes either in your back yard or from the local market. With a hint of spice it’s the perfect cake for a snack or with a cup of coffee for breakfast. No one will ever know there are tomatoes in the mix let alone a bit of spirit.
I cannot bake without the use of a scale. It takes so much guesswork out of this scientific process and thus less room for mistakes. We all measure differently when it comes to measuring cups and spoons and I am not certain that there is even a standard among those vessels in the manufacturing process. Use a meaty tomato for this cake or cut out the seeds before processing. This year I grew Burpee’s “salsa” tomatoes, which have very few seeds.
Print
Spirited Fresh Tomato Cake
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 40 minutes
- Total Time: 55 minutes
- Yield: serves 9 1x
Ingredients
10 ounces ripe plum tomatoes, cored (see photo)
¼ cup gold rum
½ cup chopped dried cherries
½ cup toasted sliced almonds
1 cup all purpose flour
¾ cup almond meal flour
1-teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon sea salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
½ cup unsalted butter, softened
¾ cup sugar
1 egg
Powdered sugar
Instructions
- Heat oven 350F. Spray an 8-inch baking pan with no-stick baking spray or grease and flour.
- Process tomatoes in a blender or food processor until smooth (measure 1 cup of tomato puree).
- Toss cherries and rum together in a small bowl.
- In medium bowl, whisk flour, almond meal, baking soda, salt and spices together.
- In a large bowl, with electric mixer beat butter and sugar for 5 minutes or until light and fluffy. Add egg; blend well. Slowly, beat in tomato puree; mixture will look curdled.
- Add flour mixture blending just until moistened (I usually fold the flour mixture in by hand).
- Stir in cherries, rum and almonds; blend well.
- Pour batter into prepared pan; smooth the top.
- Bake 40 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean and cake pulls away from sides of pan.
- Cool on wire rack for 10 minutes before inverting on rack to cool completely.
- Dust with powdered sugar before serving.
- Category: dessert
- Method: baking
Keywords: tomato cake, almond flour, healthy snack, snack cake