Baking Challenge #6: Tomato Soup Cake

I don't know about you but I LOVE Tomato Soup especially with a grilled cheese sandwich to dunk in it. So when I saw this recipe, I immediately wanted to try it. It comes from the book called, Southern Cakes.

There was a bit of calamity that I need to state up front as this recipe made me want to scream and throw a small tantrum! I have no gripes with the cake. The cake is wonderful but the frosting SUCKS! I have decided to totally leave out the frosting from this recipe because it isn't worth mentioning and it will make you hate the cake. This cake is practically perfect in taste, texture, and moistness. It reminds me of a cross between carrot cake and gingerbread. The vanilla frosting was way too sugary and completely overpowered the cake. I could hardly taste the cake because it was too sweet and the flavor didn't pair well with the flavors of the cake. The frosting had a slight nuttiness in flavor because its made with some brown sugar. That being said, I don't want to deter you away from making the Tomato Soup Cake as there is a way to make it perfect. It states in the book that you can also use cream cheese frosting for this cake. Duh! This is what I should have used instead of using the vanilla frosting that was designated to the cake. Everyone loves cream cheese frosting with carrot cake and this cake has a lot of the same flavors so that would work great. You can also bake it in a 13x9-inch pan and cut the cake into squares dusting the tops with powder sugar. I will definitely bake this cake again because it was so yummy!



Tomato Soup Cake

Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/3 cups sugar
1 tablespoon plus 1 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
One 10 3/4-ounce can condensed Campbell's cream of tomato soup
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/4 cup water

Heat oven to 350 degrees.
Grease two 8-inch cake pans or a 13x9-inch pan

In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, allspice, baking soda, cinnamon, and cloves, and stir with a fork to mix everything together well. Add the tomato soup, butter, eggs, and water to the bowl. Using a whisk or mixer at low speed, beat all the ingredients into a smooth batter, stopping to scrape down the bowl occasionally.

Divide the batter into the prepared pans and bake for about 25 minutes, until the cakes are golden brown, spring back when touched lightly in the center, and begin to pull away from the sides of the pans.

Let cakes cool and then frost.























I would recommend not slicing your layers–just level the 2 cakes and fill. I tried to slice each cake in half to make four layers but the cake was too fragile and the frosting was too heavy causing my cake to be blob around the sides. So I tried to fix the cake by cutting it in a square to get rid of the edges and that didn't work so great either. Well, now you've learned from my mistakes and you can make this cake the best that it can be!