The Retro Cake With a Secret Ingredient I Never Saw Coming

If there's one thing that stands out about Great Depression-era baking, it's how resourceful home cooks managed to be with almost nothing available. Ingredients taken for granted today, like eggs, butter, cream, and sugar, were often too expensive or hard to find.

I'm so impressed with how often bakers leaned on unexpected substitutions to make things work. One that keeps popping up on Reddit’s r/Old_Recipes is using tomato soup instead of dairy, like in this Campbell’s Tomato Soup Cake from the 1970s. 

A Brief History of Tomato Soup in Baking

Used as an alternative to milk or cream, tomato soup started appearing in baking cookbooks in the late 1920s and early 1930s. By the ‘50s, Campbell's was promoting its own Tomato Soup Cake recipe in cookbooks and on can labels. 

If you’re skeptical about using condensed tomato soup instead of milk, don't be. It works surprisingly well in baking! Its natural acidity and thickening agents, especially a substance called pectin, help retain moisture and activate leaveners.

The result is a rich, tender crumb much like a spice or butter cake. With the right combination of spices, fans will say it tastes like a standard spice cake.

What I Thought About the Tomato Soup Cake

With an ingredient substitution this unexpected, I couldn’t resist testing the Campbell's recipe. The version making the rounds on Reddit calls for the usual cake basics like all-purpose flour, sugar, eggs, Crisco, baking powder and baking soda, plus cinnamon, allspice, cloves, water and, of course, tomato soup.

Right away, I saw that mixing the dry and wet ingredients gave the batter an almost pumpkin-spice color. I could smell the spices as I mixed, which honestly got me really excited for how the cake would turn out. After baking at 350°F for roughly 35 minutes, my excitement cranked up another notch when I saw the beautiful golden-brown color on the finished cake.

Judging just by the smell coming from the oven, you’d never guess this cake had tomato soup in it. And when I took my first bite, all my doubts disappeared.

The cake is moist, rich, and satisfying, with no hint of tomato soup flavor at all. The spices completely steal the show, and I can easily see how adding a cream cheese frosting, or even a tablespoon of cocoa powder, could make this recipe extra-special.

Does This Recipe Hold Up?

After experiencing the magic for myself, it's obvious why Depression-era bakers used tomato soup as a substitute for dairy. It delivers a moist, tender bite and rich flavor like milk or cream would.

Campbell's Tomato Soup Cake is a nostalgic reminder that some of our best creations come from moments of strife. Surprising ingredients like this remind me how magical baking can be.