This cake was moist and wonderful!! I had to omit the walnuts and raisins because some in my family don't care for them but the cake was still fabulous! Everyone who tried it raved about it. I served it with homemade cinnamon chip ice cream. I personally feel the nuts and raisins would make it even more exquisite.. But it was still worth 5 stars without them!!
I made muffins out of this recipe. I always coupon a lot of canned tomato sauce so this was perfect to use a can in a really healthy and tasty way. I used whole wheat white flour and because I'm low on vegetable oil I cut the vegetable oil by half and substituted the rest with my homemade organic applesauce. I did warm the orange juice and I soaked the raisins in the warm orange juice for about twenty minutes before I added the rest of the wet ingredients. I did not make this for my family so I cut the raisins by half and I did not add the nuts (you never know if other people love raisins as much as you do OR are allergic to nuts). This turned out fabulous. Very moist and the combination of the tomato sauce (you can't tell what it is in the cake but you like it--it's really good!) and spices was just wonderful. I would up the spices next time just a touch and add a little vanilla extract. For my family I think it needs the nuts (I would use pecans--we're not a walnut family) and keep the raisins halved. I think that using a cup and a half would have been overkill. I was able to get 12 largish regular muffins and 24 largeish mini-muffins out of this recipe. It makes a lot so if you don't have a big family make sure you have room in your freezer OR you've got friends who like muffins!
this is such a great cake because it is so quick easy & is made with ingredients always on hand!!
Just like my mother used to make. The first time, I had to substitute prune juice for the orange juice and it wasn't bad at all...but it does taste better with oj. I've also added grated orange peel to it for additional flavor, and since allspice already has clove, I don't add the additional clove in the recipe.
I was a little concerned because the combination of ingredients seemed a little odd. But I have to say this cake is pretty good. I may have over baked it a little because it was not very moist. But all in all the flavor was good. I'll make this again but keep a better eye on it. Thanks!
While the over all cake was excellent and flavor was off the board excellent as well. My only downfall with not making it a 5 star is the over abundance of raisins. Now Following this to a T I didn't think anything was wrong with the cake until it was finished and went to slicing portions. It was falling apart. It really had a hard time getting one good portion with out making a mess of the cake everywhere. It was moist not dry but fell apart. I feel the excessive raisins keeps the cake from binding together. I will make this again TOTALLY!! But with the reduction of raisins. Because it's the only thing really and truely in the recipe that was excessive. This also would make a better bar style treat verses an actual cake. Possibly using a jelly roll pan and make bar treats. But above all great spice flavor and the spice lingers a bit in the mouth as well. No traces of any tomato flavor at all. My husband was totally shocked and my kids thought it was a pumpkin spiced fruit cake....boy were they wrong about the pumpkin. But was totally worth making.
I followed the recipe with the exception that I used chopped pecans and I also baked it in two loaf pans. I also had to add about 2 tbsp extra milk. I don't recommend eating it the first day as it is very dry. It needs to sit a day to become a nice moist loaf. It's not my idea of a 'cake' anymore than a banana loaf is a cake and this is a bit firmer than a banana loaf. Goes great with a cup of tea or coffee though. Nice flavour nice rich color. Took 10 minutes longer to cook than suggested by the recipe. I might make it again but will add some orange zest to compliment the orange juice in the recipe or maybe even use some frozen juice concentrate. Or both.
I wasn't impressed. Not one person asked for the recipe - so that told me a lot too. I try something new every week and this one I'll take a pass on.
By mistake I used tomato soup instead of tomato sauce and it turned out very good. I've made it several times that way before I noticed that it was tomato sauce and not soup. I will try with sauce next time.
