Tomato Soup?

You will never guess what I made with this can of soup!

(Forgive my photos... learning to use my camera on my iPhone)

Cake!

The batter is gorgeous... a thick, creamy, whipped texture.

If you know me, you know I am a sucker for new recipes and I especially love it when I have all the ingredients on hand and.  Better yet... I love it when a recipe has a story.

This is an old fashioned recipe which primarily calls for pantry items including a can of tomato soup.  Who knew, right?  It seriously makes me wonder how a person ever came to think, "Hey, I am going to throw a can of soup in my cake and see how that turns out!"  When you taste this cake, you'd never imagine there is tomato soup in there.  It just tastes like spice cake. This dessert would be very good with cream cheese frosting but I had none.  A little sprinkle of powdered sugar is nice and is enough since the cake already has a moist texture.

My husband had a piece of cake and said, "Cake is good!"  Do you think I should tell him about the tomato soup?

The recipe comes from Campbell's Soup and the recipe link is HERE, but like I said... the recipe has a story.

Dating back to the 1930's, Mystery Cake was tremendously popular as it required very little butter and eggs, precious ingredients in Depression era America. The flavors in this cake are rich with no true tomato taste, just the warmth of the spices and sweetness of the raisins. This cake keeps beautifully and can be enjoyed as a snack cake with no icing needed, or iced with a simple vanilla glaze to dress it up. "This is a pleasant cake, which keeps well and puzzles people while you are cooking other things, which is always sensible and makes you feel rather noble, in itself a small but valuable pleasure." M.F.K. Fisher 1942

I found this information on the King Arthur Flour website. Their recipe (which can be found HERE), calls for butter (instead of shortening), a bit less flour, and is baked in a smaller 9' round baking pan.  I almost made the King Arthur Flour version but found just enough shortening in my cupboard so I made the Campbell's version. 

Tomato Soup Spice Cake Recipe from www.campbellskitchen.com

What You'll Need

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/3 cups sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons ground allspice
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1 can (10 3/4 ounces) Campbell's® Condensed Tomato Soup
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
2 eggs
1/4 cup water
Cream Cheese Frosting

How to Make It

1  Heat the oven to 350°F.  Grease a 13x9-inch baking pan.                                

                               

2  Stir the flour, sugar, baking powder, allspice, baking soda, cinnamon and cloves in a large bowl.  Add the soup, shortening, eggs and water.  Beat with an electric mixer on low speed just until blended.   Increase the speed to high and beat for 4 minutes.  Pour the batter into the pan.                                

                               

3  Bake for 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Let the cake cool in the pan on a wire rack for 20 minutes.  Frost with the Cream Cheese Frosting.                                

Recipe Tips

Cream Cheese Frosting: Beat 1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, softened, 2 tablespoons milk and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract in a medium bowl with an electric mixer on medium speed until the mixture is creamy.  Slowly beat in 1 package (16 ounces) confectioners' sugar until the frosting is desired consistency.