Tomato cake, the sweet and spicy type

First point. I've now understood that vegetables do deserve their places in sweet cakes. They make them moist and therefore good. And I understand that before I've even tried beetroot-chocolate cake or chocolate cake with sauerkraut.

Second point. I haven't yet understood why vegetable cakes always hide their flavour behind a heap of spices or chocolate. Would they really be that bad otherwise? I haven't tried a version without them myself, but it seems as though we're just using the vegetables, isn't it? I mean, I'd be insulted, it's like dating a man but begging him to wear a paper bag on his head.

Third point. In case of a tomato flood at your house (I'm looking forward to ours...), this recipe is a great way of smuggling tomatoes into a dish. Just peel fresh tomatoes by scaring them with boiling water until the skin wants to come off by itself.


Spicy tomato cake with curd cheese frosting
(Adapted from Maria Öhrn's 'Tårtor' (Cakes))

100 g butter at room temperature
2 1/2 dl soft brown sugar (I used 2 dl of caster sugar and 1/2 dl of dark syrup instead)
3 eggs
3 dl pureed canned tomatoes (beware, they have to be in their own juice, not marinated)
5 dl flour
1/2 tbsp baking soda
1/2 ml ground nutmeg
2 ml ground cloves
1 tsp cinnamon
100 g walnuts (I used hazelnuts instead - a very tasty adaption!), chopped to pieces

frosting:
400 g curd cheese (cream cheese could be used instead)
2 dl heavy cream
sugar
vanilla
1 1/2 tsp lime juice

1. Beat the soft butter together with the sugar until fluffy.
2. Add eggs one by one and then pureed tomatoes.
3. Mix flour with spices and baking soda, then add to the batter. Add chopped nuts.
4. Grease a 24 cm springform pan and pour the batter into it. Bake at 175C for 40-50 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool completely.
5. Beat the heavy cream and sugar with an electric mixer until whipped, then add curd cheese. Flavour with extra sugar (if needed), vanilla and lime juice.
6. Cut the cake into two and spread the frosting both between the layers and on top. The cake is good served immediately, but it's better after a few hours.
   

It's primarily a spice cake. I tried to trace tomato flavour (thinking of tomato juice), but it was quite hard. I think I noticed a bit of it, but that's as far as my noticing goes; I can't be sure:D

The spice combination kind of gets it and the cake is nicely moist, even if it doesn't look so apparent on the photos. The curd cheese frosting came out really nice and fitting, but I tend to think that sour cream could have been a cooler ingredient here. Even more in harmony with the whole spicy cakey thingy (and it's not that I thought about our family's all-time-favourite tomato salad with sour cream...).