a cake with tomatoes? absolutely!

you are not imagining this-i really am suggesting that you make a cake with tomatoes. a spicy, moist cake studded with currants and pecans that is perfect for the extra tomatoes your garden is dumping on you hourly. it is also good in late winter when dreams of a summer garden are all you have to keep you going in dreary weather. honestly, it is good anytime; when isn’t a bundt cake a good thing? never, if you ask me.

it does not matter what type of tomatoes you use for this recipe. they can be yellow, pink or red, even green. what is important is that they taste good to you. sweeter varieties will probably add a little to the sugar content of the cake but the tomato flavor really isn’t detected in the final product. the only exception might be that the redder varieties could give the cake a more golden-orange hue. i haven’t tried it with green tomatoes but i am thinking that the color may not be as pretty as the cake in my photos-i used deep red beefsteak tomatoes.

one final note, you can use your own homemade puree or if you do not have flavorful tomatoes to make puree, use tomato juice or canned whole or crushed tomatoes. be sure to run them through the food processor to eliminate the chunks and be careful of using a brand with flavors added; no one wants garlic or onion in their cake.

the tomatoes will need to be peeled first. you could simply run them through a food mill to do this or mark an “x” on the bottom of the tomato with a paring knife and then lower the tomatoes into rapidly boiling water. after 45 seconds to a minute, remove the tomato and check it by pulling at the skin where you cut it. if it peels up easily, they are ready. if not, put them back in the water for another 15 seconds and repeat the test.

the skin will peel off easily when they are blanched properly.

cut the tomatoes in half, remove as much of the jelly and seeds as you can, roughly dice them and put them into the food processor. pulse them to form a puree that has no detectable chunks of tomato.