Carrot Cake and Zucchini Bread, meet your cousin Green Tomato Cake. What to do with green tomatoes at the end of the season? Hmmm. I can’t stand to let them go to waste. There are a few options, but this one is the sweetest.
This Green Tomato Cake is a nice surprise. The green tomatoes make the cake moist and healthy-ish without tomato flavor. But as with any cake, the icing makes it a superstar.
Carrot Cake and Zucchini Bread, meet your cousin Green Tomato Cake.
Green Tomato Cake is so delicious and one of my favorites! What are you going do with all those end of the season tomatoes that are still green and not turning red? This is a simple solution. This cake is delicious, on the healthier side because it has vegetables in it (wink wink) and it can easily be made gluten-free.
You can make it rustic by using raw sugar or you can use refined sugar and make it a little more like traditional cake. You can even use a box cake mix. It doesn’t have to be gluten-free, but since I follow a gluten-free diet I of course made this gluten-free. You can skip the gluten-free part just by subbing out the gluten-free cake mix and Xanthan Gum with a regular yellow cake box mix or cake recipe.
The Amazing Cream Cheese Icing is absolutely delicious and the icing is what truly makes any cake right? You can also use simple powdered sugar or a glaze on top if you don’t want to go with a heavier icing.
You can checkout my recipe for the most Amazing Cream Cheese Icing and my first attempt at trying to Make a Naked Cake. I think it came out pretty good considering it was my first attempt at trying to make a naked cake. I went ahead and found end of the season herbs in my garden and topped the cake with them. You can decorate it however which way you want of course, but I wanted to try something new this time. Go ahead and give it a shot let me know what you think!
This very hearty and rustic cake would be amazing to serve at brunch, and it goes great with afternoon tea. It can be sliced reasonably thin, so that one 9-inch round two layer cake can serve up to 20 people!
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Green Tomato Cake Recipe
This very hearty and rustic cake would be amazing to serve at brunch, and it goes great with afternoon tea. It can be sliced reasonably thin, so that one 9-inch round two layer cake can serve up to 20 people! (This recipe yields two 9-inch round pans or 24 cupcakes.)
Ingredients
- 2 cups Chopped Green Tomatoes
- 3 cups Gluten-Free All Purpose Flour You can skip the gluten-free part just by subbing out the gluten-free cake mix and Xanthan Gum with a regular yellow cake box mix or cake recipe.
- 2 cups Turbinado Cane Sugar Turbinado gives the cake a more rustic look and consistency. You can also use granulated white cane sugar if preferred
- 2 tbps Baking powder
- 2/3 tsp Baking Soda
- 3 eggs
- 2/3 cup Vegetable Oil
- 2 tbsp White Vinegar or lemon juice
- 2 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 1 1/2 tsp Cinnamon
- 1 cup Milk
- 1/2 tsp Xanthan Gum Omit for non gluten-free version
- Amazing Cream Cheese Icing (link to recipe below)
Instructions
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Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease two round 9 inch baking pans. (I like to used coconut oil, but of course use what you enjoy!)
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Wisk dry ingredients in a bowl.
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Add all the wet ingredients (except chopped tomatoes) to the bowl and mix together with hand mixer.
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Gently fold chopped tomatoes into mixture with a spatula until distributed throughout the batter.
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Add cake mix to greased pans.
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Bake cake at 350 degrees for 45-60 minutes, until nicely browned and toothpick test comes out clean. Remove pan from oven.
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When cake has slightly cooled, remove from pan and place on cooling racks. Once cooled to room temperature, layer cakes with wax paper, stack and refrigerate overnight (or minimum 2-3 hours).
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Spread Amazing Cream Cheese Icing over cake as desired.
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Slice and enjoy!
Recipe Notes
You can skip the gluten-free part just by subbing out the gluten-free cake mix and Xanthan Gum with a regular yellow cake box mix or cake recipe.
Related links: Amazing Cream Cheese Icing and Icing a Naked Cake.
I prefer to use a box mix as the base for this cake. Otherwise it’s a delicious and ingenious way to use up those green tomatoes! Thanks for sharing. I will definitely be making this again.
Naked cake with your Amazing cream cheese icing is the way to go!
Perfect dessert for my southern inspired menu! It was a hit! Thin slices was the key since this cake is so rich.
So delicious! Refined sugar definitely was the way to go in my opinion.