Panzanella has been the taste of my summer. Garlanded with the ripest of peaches, tomatoes and avocadoes, on a bed of the most delicious ciabatta and scattered with torn mozarella and parmaham rosettes. A wonderful base recipe for you to create your own personalised panzanella!
Read moreTomato Cake With Cream Cheese Frosting
A few weeks ago, when I was staying with my parents, my mum dug out a recipe book that she was given in the 70's when we lived in Japan. My parents were members of the American Club over there and the female members all contributed recipes to make up a recipe book that was then sold for charity. Containing brilliant headings such as "Dinner When The Ambassador Comes To Visit" and "Light Supper After A Mahjong Evening", this was a deadly serious book that was designed as a kitchen aid for the ladies of leisure.
It was very entertaining and in it, I stumbled across a recipe for Tomato Cake With Cream Cheese Frosting. The chief ingredient is Campbell's Tomato Soup. I had to give it a go!! I wanted to stay loyal to the original recipe as am often intrigued by food flavours and recipe ideas from previous decades, although could only find Campbell's Cream Of Tomato Soup where I think the cream has been added since the 70's. Maybe you can still find it without cream but I was out of luck so cream it was!
The other flavour that is very strong in this cake is cloves. The recipe calls for 1 tsp cloves but I think this is too strong and would have benefitted from a 1/2 tsp instead so I would definitely make this change. One change I did make after my recent discovery that I'm not a fan of shortening, is that I switched this for butter (I know, I know - not very loyal to the original recipe but a necessity I felt!)
The texture was very moist and I do love the colour of this cake. The cream cheese topping was a nice addition of sweetness on the top. Once the balance of the cloves is addressed, I think this would make a lovely morning coffee or afternoon tea cake. You can definitely play an ingredients' guessing game with your guests and feel pretty confident that you will win :)
Tomato Cake With Cream Cheese Frosting
Cake Ingredients
- 225G CASTER SUGAR
- 120G BUTTER
- 400G CAMPBELL'S TOMATO SOUP (these cans are now condensed so I used 1 and a bit cans for this)
- 1 TSP BAKING SODA
- 250G PLAIN FLOUR
- 2 TSP BAKING POWDER
- 1 TSP CLOVES (suggest reducing this to a ½ tsp)
- 1 TSP CINNAMON
- 1/4 TSP SALT
Frosting Ingredients
- 85G FULL-FAT CREAM CHEESE
- 300G SIFTED ICING SUGAR
Method
- Preheat the oven to 160 degrees (fan)
- Lightly grease and line a loaf tin
- Cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy
- Add the baking soda to the tomato soup and then add this mixture to the cream and butter. Mix until well incorporated.
- Sift the flour, baking powder, cloves, cinnamon and salt and then add this mixture to the soup mixture
- Stir until combined and then put this into the loaf tin
- Bake for around 40 mins until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean
- Leave in the tin for 5 mins and then remove and cool on a cooling rack
- Mix together the cream cheese and icing sugar until smooth, adding enough milk to make it spread easily
- Decorate the top of the cake with the cream cheese frosting - I enjoyed making organic swirls but you can choose a design of your liking!