What's Baking in the Barbershop?!: Tomato Soup Spice Cake with Cinnamon Buttercream Frosting

Tomato soup in a cake, you ask? Yes, it's true! I made this tomato soup spice cake for our family's Christmas dessert this year. I had never made it though, so it was a gamble! My family loved it, thankfully. :) Or, they pretended that they loved it I suppose! The tomato soup not only gave the cake a nice, slight reddish color, but it also provided a bit of a tang to offset the sweetness of the spice cake and buttercream frosting.

This recipe is from the Cake Mix Doctor, a book I used for an earlier post this month. It was generally pretty easy too; the hardest, or the most time consuming part rather, was just frosting the cake. I chose to make a bundt cake rather than a round cake with two layers, which is what the recipe actually calls for. I also did NOT add the raisins and pecans that are in the original recipe...to me, it seemed best as a plain ol' spice cake without any additions!

Overall, it was a recipe that I'd definitely make again. The only change I might make is to add a bit more of one of the liquids to make it a bit more moist...so either a little more tomato soup or vegetable oil. I personally would have liked a moister cake, although this certainly was not dry. Others felt that it was just fine as is!

Here's the recipe for the cake:

-1 package (18.25 oz.) plain spice cake mix

-1 can (10.75 oz.) condensed tomato soup, undiluted

-3 large eggs

-1/3 cup vegetable oil

-1/4 cup water

-1/2 cup raisins (I did not add these)

-1/2 cup chopped pecans (nor did I add these!)

And here is the frosting recipe for plain Buttercream Frosting:

-8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, at room temperature

-3 and 3/4 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted

-3 to 4 tablespoons milk

-2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Here is how to make it Cinnamon Buttercream Frosting. This is what I used on this cake, and I have to admit that I loved it. So very tasty!

-Decrease the amount of vanilla extract to 1 teaspoon instead of 2, and add 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon.

Preheat oven to 350. Liberally grease two 9-inch round cake pans, or 1 bundt pan, with cooking spray or solid vegetable shortening. Then dust with flour and shake out any excess flour. Set the pans aside.

Place the cake mix, undiluted tomato soup, eggs, oil, and water in a large mixing bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low speed for 1 minute. Stop the machine and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Increase the mixer speed to medium and beat 2 to 3 minutes more, scraping down the sides again as needed. The batter should look well combined and thickened. Fold in the raisins and pecans (if desired). Pour the batter evenly into the prepared pans, smoothing it out with the rubber spatula.

Bake the cakes until they spring back when lightly pressed with your finger and just start to pull away from the sides of the pan, 28 to 31 minutes (a bundt cake will take longer, 40-45 minutes). Remove from oven and place in wire racks to cool for 10-15 minutes; then remove cake from pans to cool completely. Cooling completely is important to make the process of frosting much easier.

Meanwhile, prepare the frosting. Place the butter in a large mixing bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low speed until fluffy, 30 seconds. Stop the mixer and add the confectioners' sugar, 3 tablespoons milk, vanilla, and cinnamon. Mix on low speed until well incorporated, about 1 minute. Increase the speed to medium and beat until light and fluffy, 1 minute more. Blend in more milk if the frosting seems stiff. I like this picture of the frosting because you can actually see the little specks of cinnamon in it!

If using two cake layers, place one cake layer, right side up, on a serving platter and spread the top with frosting. Place the second layer, right side up, on top of the first layer and frost the top and sides of the cake with clean, smooth strokes. If making a bundt cake, just frost as is! Store this cake in the refrigerator until you're ready to serve.

As you can see, I decided to decorate the cake a bit too. I discovered some cupcake stencils I've had for a while but never used! I thought they'd be fun to use for the cake. In the first picture at the beginning of this post, you can see the whole cake with three snowflake stencils and three holly stencils... Below is a picture of what a stencil looks like. They're a fun idea for a unique decorating twist! My first couple snowflakes didn't turn out all that great. I probably should have practiced first, but I didn't have any extra cake or cupcake to do that! Oh well...the fam didn't mind my mistakes. :)