Green tomato cake (+gluten-free option)

I had just about dealt with all the green tomatoes from my roof when I was gifted a pile more from ECO (thanks to D, K and A!). I actually still had lots of unrealised green tomato ideas, and ended up going with green tomato cake for these toms - a new one in my repertoire of weirdo vegetable cakes...

4 cups chopped green tomatoes (chop fairly fine)
1 tbsp salt
1/3 cup veg oil
1 1/3 cups sugar (used mixture of white and brown)
2 eggs (or 2 tbsp ground linseed mixed with 5 tbsp boiling water)
2 cups plain flour (or 2 cups TJ's GF flour mix plus 1/4 tsp xanthan gum)
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup raisins

Put the green tomatoes in a bowl with ~1 tbsp salt. Mix and let sit for ~ 10 min, while you prepare the rest of the ingredients and start on the cake. Heat the oven to 350F. Beat the vegetable oil and sugar together in a bowl with a fork. Add the eggs (or linseed mixture) and beat until reasonably well combined and aerated. Mix the flour, xanthan gum if using, 1/4 tsp salt, spices and bicarb in a separate bowl with a fork. Add the raisins and walnuts to the dry stuff and mix. Add the wet to dry and mix until just combined. Rinse and drain (try to get most of the liquid out) the green tomatoes and then fold into the cake mixture. Grease a loaf tin and line the base. Dollop the cake mixture into the tin. Bake for 45-60 min until a skewer comes out clean (exact cooking time will depend on shape of tin used). Let cool in the tin for at least half an hour before lifting out.


This was really, surprisingly good. The green toms are hardly noticeable - visually only if you look for them, and taste-wise hardly at all. So it is basically a moist, spiced cake rich with walnuts and raisins. The GF version was a little bit crumbly when sliced but really just a little bit - quite acceptable in this type of cake (made with eggs; rose beautifully). We took it for D's birthday party, and it went down well (especially with A).