Does green tomatoes in a cake sound weird? I thought so when I came across Paula Deen‘s “Green Tomato Cake” on the Food Network. If you do give this cake some serious thought, it isn’t that strange. There are breads and cakes made withing carrots, pumpkin and zucchini. So why not with green tomatoes? That recipe was the inspiration for my Spiced Green Tomato Bundt Cake.
If you follow this blog, you’ll know we love our green tomatoes. I have previously posted Green Tomato And Onion Curry, Green Tomato Pickle, Green Tomato Khorma, Green Tomato Relish. My green tomato journey is far from over yet. Today they’re going into this delicous, mildly and warm spiced cake.
I trawled the net looking for a recipe that called to me and didn’t find one. Most recipes (including Paula Deen’s) seemed to call for a lot of butter, sugar and eggs! So I came up with my own recipe for a cake that isn’t very rich. This recipe makes a small cake that’s good for about 6 to 8 people, to serve with coffee. You can double the ingredients for a larger cake. Remember a larger cake will take a little longer to cook.
This Spiced Green Tomato Bundt Cake is spiced with masala chai spice powder. Indian chai masala/ spice powder is made with warm spices including black pepper, cardamom and dried ginger. You can make it it at home or buy a blend from the store. This cake can be dusted with powdered sugar but I prefer it as it is.
When you serve this cake, very few people will be able to identify the bright green bits in it as green tomatoes! Unlike other cakes made with vegetable or fruit this cake not dense. It is quite light, spongy and moist.
This delicious cake goes to Meeta for her Monthly Mingle: Brunch.
This post has been updated with text and photographs recently.
Spiced Green Tomato Bundt Cake
Ingredients
- 1 cup green tomatoes chopped
- 1/4 cup raisins golden or green Iranian
- 60 gm salted butter (un is also fine)soft and at room temperature
- 1/4 tsp salt (only if using uned butter)
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup light brown sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 tsp masala chai powder
- 3/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- powdered sugar for dusting (optional)
Instructions
- Iranian green raisins are small with a greenish colour and delightfully sweet. The Indian green raisins are also pretty good. You can also use golden raisins or what you have on hand.
- In a bowl, beat the butter and sugars with an electric mixer, for a couple of minutes. Add the egg and vanilla extract and beat well. Sift together 1 cup of the flour, baking soda, baking powder and chai masala powder. Add this to the mixture in the bowl and beat, on medium speed, till well mixed.
- Take another bowl and put the chopped tomatoes and raisins in it. Add the remaining 1/2 cup of flour and mix, using a wooden spoon, till the flour has coated the tomatoes well. Add this mixture to the batter in the other bowl and fold in till well mixed using a wooden spoon. The mixture will be quite thick.
- Scrape this mixture into a very well buttered and floured bundt/ tube pan (mine is small - a 4 cup bundt pan) and smoothen the top.
- Bake at 180C (350F) for 40 to 50 minutes still a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. Cool in the tin for about 10 minutes. Then unmould the cake. Cool on a rack. Cover with sugar glaze, dust with powdered sugar or leave plain as the cake has enough flavour to not want any further additions.
I'm Aparna and My Diverse Kitchen is my ovo-lacto vegetarian food blog where you'll find recipes, food stories & photography. I've been blogging since 2007 and believe the kitchen, and the dining table (by extension) is really the heart of a home. 
Yup, why not? Especially when the result is as yummy as this cake!
That looks indeed very delicious. I love the acidic taste of the tomatoes too.I might omit the egg and try. Should go well with a cup of chai in the evening.
so pretty… like little light green emeralds
How innovative! What is the connection between acidic and baking soda?
Wow,looks great and I prefer this recipe than Paula’s.Love the innovation using chai masala pdr.BTW,I echo sra’s query: I thght you can avoid/reduce soda if other acidic ingredients like buttermilk (or tomatoes as in here )are there?
wow, tomatoes in cake? amazing!
What a fascinating idea! I love the shape of the pan, too.
oh wow thats really fantastic… different combo..yummo wish to try soon.
Would love to try that. What a genius, looks great too
true.. vegetables in cake don’t have residual flavor but add wonder moistness to the cake..Btw, your cake is so gorgeous.. can distinctly see the bits of raisins and greenness.. lovely!
The green is very impressive. I imagine the taste of this cake with chai masala!
Yummy and creative!
Cake sounds interesting- green tomatoes, chai masala. It looks moist and spongy.
Wow. I have all of these cherry tomatoes in my garden that are green, and will never ripen. I made salsa with a bunch, but there’s a lot more. This would be just the thing.
Such a unique recipe…never heard of this before.
This is the most unique of all cakes :p I have so much green tomatoes from my yard but a broken oven;-( I would have surely tried this if I could. WOW!
You had me so intrigued by the title, and was so interested in what tomatoes in a bundt would turn out like. But you are right, it’s not that different to other vegetables. This looks so moist.
aparna this looks incredible delicious and moist! a perfect entry for the mingle.
Really? Wow, I saw this episode and was quite sceptical! And all of Paula Deen’s recipes ask for umpteen amounts of butter.Aparna, do we get Food Network in India now? aaah, my India trip is going to be fun!
What an amazing and interesting cake, I would have never thought to add either green tomatoes or chai masala to cake ! Cake looks wonderful…
I never would have thought to use green tomatoes in a cake, Aparna, but why not, indeed? This sounds so delicious. I love the creative use of the chai-masala. I must bookmark this one.
Thank you for the comments. It was the unusual use of tomatoes in this cake that got me baking it!The chai masala just adds a lovely flavour without an overpowering taste.P, I can confirm it is yummy!Lata, you can definitely omit the egg as the cake is moist enough. You might need a little more leavening then as the cake could get dense otherwise.Green emerlds? That’s a good one, Raaga.Sra and Sweatha, baking soda is pure sodium bicarbonate and reacts with acidic ingredients (here the green tomatoes) to produce carbon dioxide which bubbles causing baked goods to rise.I just discovered that your are the “Queen” of bundt pans, Natashya! :)N, I find Paula Deen’s recipes a little too rich for our taste!No, Food Network isn’t here yet! 🙂
I like the sound of using green tomatoes in a cake!
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Baking soda gives acidic ingredients an extra lift in things like cakes, pancakes and waffles.
You can reduce the baking powder with addition of a small amount of baking soda when there are acidic ingredients.
Your recipe here and as I printed it out calls for 3/4 tsp baking powder and 1/4 tsp baking powder. Do I assume that is actually 3/4 tsp baking powder and 1/4 tsp baking SODA?
I’m sorry about that. Yes, it is 1/4 tsp baking soda. I’m making the correction.
The end says “cover with glaze” before putting on the powdered sugar….what kind of glaze?
There was a typo in that sentence. My apologies. I have made the corrections. It was meant to read ” cover with sugar glaze, dust with powdered sugar or leave plain…..”
I made this today. Had to make my own chai masala. Also, I made it vegan by using a vegan margarine stick and ground flax seed mixed with water for the egg.
I was very concerned about how dry the batter was. I cooked it in an 8″ x 8″ pyrex pan. It turned out wonderfully!! Moist and tasty! Thanks for a great recipe!
Yes, the batter tens to be on the thicker side but it cooks up well. Happy to know my recipe worked for you.
I do not know what happened, but I made this cake and it was EXTREMELY dry and didn’t bake, no rising! I did use a white sugar substitute, monk fruit, and half the brown sugar. I also doubled the raisins. Could cutting back on the sugar cause the problem? This really wasn’t a “batter.”
Cheryl, I’m very sorry to hear that. The batter for this cake is of “scraping” consistency than pouring consistency. I’ve made it many times and not had a problem so far.
Perhaps all the substitutions you made might have upset the moisture ratio in the recipe.
Trying this now. Will see how it comes out. Had to add a splash of milk to get it to come together as a batter. May have messed up the conversion of grams of butter. Otherwise it would have been like pouring damp sand from a bowl.
I hope it works out for you.
I tried this recipe last night, and I think I must have had MUCH drier green tomatoes than you have! I do not know the variety, as they were from a neighbor. There was not enough moisture to incorporate all the flour — even before the addition of the tomatoes with the extra flour. I ended up adding a second egg just so I could get all the flour incorporated. I also think I could have baked it about 3 minutes less, as it came out a little dry.
Flavor is wonderful, though! I can see myself making this again, but really paying attention to the moisture content of the tomatoes. I also wondered if using some vegetable oil in place of some of the butter (or all of it?) might make for a moister cake.
Thank you for the recipe! It was fun to try a new one and use up some green tomatoes.
I’m really sorry that your cake turned out dry. Sometimes different batches of flour can also require more (or less) liquid. You could add a little oil or even milk (not too much). Hope your next cake turns out better.