Green Tomato Cake

My tomatoes are till bearing like crazy. That's what happens when you have a very late frost! But I have the sneaking suspicion that there will be a frost while I am gone next week and that will be the end of my tomatoes. So I'm trying to use all of the tomatoes I can right now, ripe or not.

I have found several green tomato recipes I want to try: fried (the classic, of course), green tomato ketchup, and green tomato and ham soup. But the one I wanted to try tonight? Green tomato cake.

Hey, cake made with green tomatoes - that's gotta be healthy! The 2 1/2 cups green tomatoes totally cancels out the 2 cups of sugar and 1 cup of oil, right? Riiiggghhhttt... So here we go.

I thought it would be something like zucchini bread. Until I read that you chop the tomatoes, not grate them.

But I decided to test the recipe out anyway. The batter looked a bit weird. The tomatoes look like bell peppers to me!

Not exactly appetizing.

But then I put some coconut on top, and that made it look a lot better.

It looked really good coming out of the oven!

It even looked pretty good sliced and served.

But then came the real test: would my family like it?

Spencer seemed to like it. But he only ate that one bite.

Lance took more than one bite. But not many.

Hmm. So it was my turn to test it out. Know what? I liked it! It was like a yummy spice cake. The tomatoes didn't taste like tomatoes - they tasted like sour apples. Granted, it's not the best cake I have ever had, but it certainly wasn't gross. I've decided this is kinda like zucchini bread, in that you only make it if you have lots of zucchini that you need to get rid of.

So if you have lots of green tomatoes, here's the recipe:

Green Tomato Cake
2 1/4 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
3 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 cup pecan or walnuts (I used almonds)
1 cup raisins
2 1/2 cups diced green tomatoes

Preheat oven to 350°. In mixing bowl, beat sugar, vegetable oil or shortening, eggs and vanilla until smooth and creamy. Sift together the flour, salt, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg; slowly beat into egg mixture. Blend well. Stir in pecans, raisins and tomatoes.
Pour into greased 9x13-inch pan. Top with coconut if desired. Bake for one hour, or until a wooden pick or cake tester inserted in center comes out clean. .
Serves 12.