I am a Southern California kid, born and raised.  I’ve become accustomed to the standard SoCal summer:  June Gloom in the beginning, hot and dry in the middle, and thick, muggy August air.  Never in my childhood do I remember in raining in the summer.  Yet, this summer, we’ve had several minor showers on muggy afternoons.  Very strange.  Anyways, all of that is a roundabout way of me getting to my point:  Thunder Cake!

One of my favorite authors growing up was the wonderful writer and illustrator, Patricia Polacco.  Her book Thunder Cake is one of her best.  It tells the story of a little girl who is spending the day with her grandmother when a storm starts rolling in.  The girl is frightened of the thunder, so her grandmother distracts her by having her help collect the ingredients for thunder cake, a very special chocolate cake.  It is a special cake, partially, because it includes tomatoes.

These summer showers kept bringing the book to my mind, and last week I just happened to have some freshly picked tomatoes on hand.  I figured why not reenact a beloved childhood story.

The final product!

The cake turned out well!  The taste of the tomatoes disappeared into the chocolate.  I would recommend keeping a closer eye on the cake than I did when it was in the oven.  It came out a tad dry, which probably wouldn’t have happened if I had taken it out 5 minutes earlier.  Still, it was a fun and nostalgic way to spend an afternoon.

The recipe (taken from Patricia Polacco’s website):

Thunder Cake!

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream together one at a time:
1 cup shortening
1 3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 eggs, separated
( blend yolks in. Beat whites until they are stiff, then fold in.)

1 cup cold water
1/3 cup pureed tomatoes

Sift together:
21/2 cups cake flour
1/2 cup dry cocoa
11/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt

Mix dry mixture into creamy mixture. Bake in two greased and floured 8
1/2 inch pans at 350 degree for
35 to 40 minutes. Frost with chocolate butter frosting. Top with
strawberries.

*Rather than buying a can of pureed tomatoes, you can make a quick puree by throwing tomatoes into the food processor.  Leaving the skins and seeds on/in the tomatoes is up to you.  Works both ways!

*I didn’t top with strawberries for fear that the fruit would go bad before the cake was consumed.