Ginger Tomato Cake
Ginger Tomato Cake
The very first piece of food trivia I ever learned was that tomatoes are fruit, but why do we limit ourselves to eating tomatoes as savoury food?
While I was revelling in sweet ripe tomato paradise recently, a recipe for a tomato cake landed in my WP reader, a sweet tomato cake made in the style of a traditional butter cake. I was inspired to experiment with a gluten free version.
After nutting out ingredients and quantities it was full steam ahead.
My finished batter was a beautiful creamy texture. I licked the bowl scraper with childlike glee, it tasted good. The aroma of the baking cake was enticing, sweet, with savoury undertones, and once done I admired the finished loaf, it looked great. Impatient to taste I forced myself to wait until the loaf had (almost) cooled.
The verdict was overwhelmingly and deliciously positive. The cake cut cleanly and the texture had a pleasing mouthfeel. The taste not too sweet and not too rich, the tomato was mysterious, savoury, delicious, and the cracked black pepper left an elusively tomato lingering flavour.
Like no other cake we’d ever tasted, I consider this cake a great success. It’s the perfect cake to enjoy with a cup of tea and I’ll definitely be making this again, maybe with an added touch of thyme.
Ginger Tomato Cake
125g almond meal
125g gluten free plain flour
20g psyllium husks
3/4 teaspoons sea salt
1 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarb
1/2 teaspoon xantham gum
125g butter
150g castor sugar
2 large eggs
300g ripe roma tomatoes (4) coarsely grated
75g crystallised ginger, roughly chopped
1 teaspoon coarsely cracked black pepper
Preheat the oven to 180C.
Grease a 25cm long loaf tin and line it with baking paper.
Whisk together the flour, almond meal, salt, raising agents and xantham to thoroughly combine.
Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then beat in the eggs one at a time.
Stir in half the dry ingredients and half the tomato.
Add the remaining dry ingredients and tomato and thoroughly combine.
Gently stir through the ginger and pepper.
Spoon the batter into the loaf tin and smooth the top.
Bake in the centre of the oven until cooked, about 40 minutes.
Remove from the oven, allow to rest for 10 minutes.
Remove the cake from the tin transfer to a cooling wire.
Allow to cool before cutting.
Best eaten within 3 days .
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34 comments on “Ginger Tomato Cake”
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Creative Commons Copyright Licence
Please Pass the Recipe by Sandra Gay is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
Please Pass the Recipe 
this sounds wonderfully interesting sandra. a bit like beetroot cake. I mean in that you use something that sounds uncake-like but it makes a great cake. always odd to think tomato is fruit; i think cucumber must technically be a fruit then:)
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This cake sounds great! I have eaten Tomato jam several times and loved it, so this has to be the next step! 😀 will definitely try it!
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It was loving tomato jam that gave me the courage to try this. Enjoy…..
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This recipe is a stunner. I love your photography and writing style. Luckily, I just bought a big container of almond meal and look forward to using it. I love the use of crystallized ginger here. Thanks for sharing this recipe, and I’m looking forward to future posts! 🙂
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Thanks for your kind words, and welcome to PPTR
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Wow! Now this definitely different, nice and unusual… if I start baking regularly again when we get back from overseas, I shall give this a try. Many thanks Sandra. x
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This are keeps people guessing, in good way, it has a wonderful juxtaposition of sweet and savoury. Happy travels..
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Tomato cake sounds interesting. We often use tomatoes for savoury meals too. I am sending the recipe to my sister. She will intrigued
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Tomatoes are surprising in cake, but delicious, enjoy…
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mmm….) I had friend, who eat tomatoes only with sugar 🙂 So strange for me. I love tomatos with salt and pepper. But this bread sound good. Beetroot is sweet and pumpkin is sweet, but cakes are ok and soups are good as well.
So out of box idea, I will try this 🙂 🙂
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Thank KR..
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I’m intrigued. This sounds like such an interesting flavor combination. I can’t say I’ve ever baked with tomato before, and I’m not a big fan of ginger either. But hey, baking is all about experimenting and trying new things for me so I’m definitely going to save this one.
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Very original. I wonder what this would be like without the sugar.
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Interesting thought. I found the balance of flavour really pleasing.
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That makes sense. I’m trying to eliminate sugar as much as possible and am developing many savory muffin recipes.
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How fascinating Sandra, I’ve seen old recipes for tomato soup cake (from a tin) but never fresh…will have to try when we have a glut of tomatoes again 🙂
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Well worth a try Beck, a great cake to play “what’s the secret ingredients.”
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A most unusual cake Sandra. I haven’t used Xanthum gum and so am wondering what element it adds in this recipe? I must try this cake next year- sadly our tomatoes finished early, though the zucchini still pump out three every other day.
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Xantham gum adds structure in the absence of gluten. You could use wheat flour to replace the GF and simply omit the xantham gum if you prefer. The flavour was wonderful
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Another of your recipes to add to my recipe book!
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Enjoy the cake Anne..
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A favourite flavour from my childhood was the sweet tomato preserves my Mother made. They were delicious and sound like a similar flavour to the sweet/savoury taste you are describing. My one question is…how do you grate ripe roma tomatoes? Do you include the peel, and do they just disintegrate? Once our guests have gone and we are home again this will be on my short list of things to try. Thank you, especially for the gluten free version!
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Hi Ardys, no tricks to grating the tomato, I used an old fashioned hand held box grater and left the skin on. Enjoy..
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I love the idea and the color is gorgeous, plus gluten free as well! Although tomato season is still a few months away, I may give it a try. The cake would be perfect to serve for dessert at my bookclub (one of the members is gluten intolerant). Pinned for future reference, thank you.
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Thanks Liz, it’s a surprising and delicious treat
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What an interesting idea, sounds really good. When I was a kid we used to have sliced tomatoes for tea, sprinkled with sugar, eaten with bread and butter. Not terribly healthy I suppose but we loved it.
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Simple bread, butter and tomato is delicious although I confess to never having tried it sprinkled with sugar. The cake was a winner
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This sounds delish – in your opinion, though, would it work if slightly less sweet? I’ve become a big fan of coconut blossom sugar, which has lots of flavour and isn’t so sweet, so I’d be interested in giving it a try…
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The recipe, as written is not too sweet, I’d be keen to know how your experiments with coconut sugar went, good luck..
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I have to think about it. I have difficulty getting my head around tomato and ginger in a cake. Would love to try a slice.
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I’d love to sit down with you, a slice if this cake and a cup tea and analyse the nuances of the cake. I loved the underlying savoury flavour although primarily this was a sweet experience. For me, it was delicious….
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Ditto! I’ve made sweet tea cakes with carrots (of course!), courgettes and beets. Why not tomatoes? Have bookmarked for later this summer when the tomatoes are abundant.
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The flavour is intriguing, sweet but savoury all at the same time, i’d be interested in hearing what you think
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Very clever!
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