Chocolate 'Tomato Soup' Fudge Cake

This is a celebratory blog post with two momentous occasions that deserve a little recognition! Firstly 2 years ago my blog was born with a rather special vegan and glutenfree chocolate cake recipe. Since that time I have embarked upon a world of baking in which many things have been missing and I have learnt that tofu whizzed up in a food processor can act as a butter milk substitute and a frozen banana is a vital ingredient to many vegan desserts!

It just so happens that my second birthday post is also the 100^th recipe I have published. It appears I have spent quite a lot of time in the kitchen over the past couple of years!! So for this centenary/2 year post there was only one suitable thing to make….a cake, and not just any cake but a gooey indulgent chocolate fudge cake. After 99 posts where ‘something’ has always been missing I am going to deviate a little here as this recipe if fully loaded with butter, eggs and gluten-full flour. The only thing that was missing when I first made this recipe for friends a few years ago was my sanity!! As the special secret ingredient in addition to the usual flour, eggs and sugar is a tin of condensed tomato soup. Yup you read that right. And whilst we are used to the addition of courgette or beetroot in a chocolate cake recipe I doubt many of us have thought to reach for that tin of soup lurking at the back of the cupboard. But this works, and doesn’t taste of tomato (honest), the soup just helps to keep the cake incredibly moist. So give it a go if you dare….and see if your friends and colleagues can guess what the secret addition to this recipe is!!  

INGREDIENTS

130g butter
300g caster sugar
2 eggs
275g cups plain flour
60g cup cocoa
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon bicarbonate soda
60ml buttermilk
400g tin condensed tomato soup

100g butter

150g icing sugar

40g cocoa

1 tbspn water

Pre-heat oven to 350 °F or 180 °C and grease and line two 20cm round sandwich tins with greased proof paper.

Cream butter and sugar together in a large bowl until light and fluffy.

Add the eggs to the mixture one at a time and beat together.

Sieve in the dry ingredients into the bowl and mix together until fully combined.

Finally add the soup and butter milk and beat to a smooth batter.

Divide the batter between the 2 tins and transfer to the oven. Bake for 30 minutes until the cakes are firm and a sharp knife inserted into the middle of the cakes comes out clean. Leave the cakes to cool slightly before removing from the tins and cooling completely on a wire rack.

Meanwhile melt the butter for the icing in a small saucepan.

Once melted remove from the heat, add the icing sugar and cocoa and beat until a smooth glossy icing is formed.

Allow the icing to cool slightly before using a little to sandwich the two cakes together. Then pour the remaining icing over the top of the cake and smooth out with a palette knife. Decorate as desired (I used sugar sprinkles) and then tuck in and celebrate with a big fat slice!!