Green Tomato Bundt Cake

About 16 slices

Tip: As gardening season comes closer to its end (in the Midwest, at least), it’s always tough to leave green tomatoes hanging on the vine. Of course, there are options – fried green tomatoes, pickled green tomatoes, green tomato salsa, relish…all of which are good, but most are savory. A baker’s gotta bake, so I adapted this cake from a recipe I found on a food blog 2 or 3 years ago…think carrot cake or zucchini bread. It’s unique and delicious!

Ingredients
1 large green tomato
1/4 cup golden raisins
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp Penzeys cake spice (Penzeys describes this as a blend of cinnamon, star anise, nutmeg, allspice, ginger and cloves. Sub your own mix if you don’t have access to Penzeys.)
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

Prep
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Grease and flour a standard sized bundt pan (12-cup).
Bring butter and eggs to room temperature.
Wash, dry, trim and chop green tomato to have about 1 to 1 1/2 cups.
Put chopped tomatoes and raisins in a small bowl. Add 1/2 cup of the flour and toss gently to coat the fruit.
Whisk together 1 cup of the flour, cake spice, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Directions
In mixing bowl, beat the butter and sugars with paddle attachment for a couple of minutes. Add the eggs and vanilla extract and beat well. Gently mix in the flour/spice mixture until well-blended. Add the tomato/raisin blend and gently fold into the batter with a rubber spatula until well-mixed, but do not overmix. The batter will be quite thick.

Scrape batter from the bowl into the prepared bundt pan. Bake at 350F for 30 to 40 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. Do not overbake.

Cool on a rack at room temperature for about 10 minutes; unmold the cake. Cool completely on the rack. Dust with powdered sugar before serving or make lemon icing (below) to drizzle over the cake. Store any uneaten cake in the refrigerator.

Lemon Icing
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 pinch salt
Zest of one lemon
3-4 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
2 tsp butter, melted
In a medium bowl, combine the sugar, salt, lemon zest and lemon juice. Whisk together, then add melted butter and whisk thoroughly to eliminate any lumps in the sugar. The icing should be thin enough to drizzle, but thick enough that it doesn’t just soak into the cake.