Grandma's Favorite Childhood Cake

My mother-in-law called me the other night, telling me it was her mother's 86 birthday on Friday. She wanted me to bake her mother's birthday cake. (I thought I can do that. I know how to bake a cake.) She invited me to lunch with them, just us girls. After lunch we would come back to my house and eat cake with the guys. (My son and husband).

This past Tuesday prior to the birthday, Mom dropped off ingredients for the cake she wanted me to use. It was an old fashioned recipe that was her mother's favorite childhood cake. (tomato soup cake.) I was like "sure, Okay, whatever you want me to do." She left a box of spice cake mix, one can of tomato soup and a container of homestyle cream cheese frosting. "I will call later with the list of other ingredients you will need to use. You do have eggs right?" (I have 6 chickens and 98 eggs so far this month) I said "Alrighty," and I started thinking what other ingredients I might need in case this recipe didn't work out, as a back-up plan.

Ingredients

We knew the frosting would be good at least. 

Mom called and left a message, "the other ingredients are 1/2 cup of water and 2 eggs. Bake per cake package directions."

Full Recipe for Tomato Soup Cake: (Unsure of source for the recipe. I will gladly give credit if anyone can find where the original recipe came from.)

1 box spice cake mix
1 can tomato soup
1/2 cup water
2 eggs
1 canister of cream cheese frosting

Mix all ingredients together (except frosting). Bake in greased 9x13 pan at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

Thursday came and I thought 'I need to bake this cake.' My suspicions were high over the taste of this cake. I gathered the ingredients, put them all in the bowl and mixed. Didn't look to bad. The smell wasn't too bad, but very different. The batter was a little thicker then most cake mixes. I put it in the greased pan and into a preheated oven. I usually don't worry about preheating and just put the pan in, but in this case I didn't want any mishaps.

Yes I really did put tomato soup in the mix.  

Thicker batter

Low and behold, as the cake was baking and almost done, a power outage occurred.  I have a gas stove but the oven doesn't work during an electrical or gas power outage. I figured the oven was hot and the cake should finish just fine. Allowing food to cook in the oven after  it is turned off is one of my frugal tips you can read here.

The cake baked just fine. After it cooled I put the frosting on.

Looks normal. 

Friday we had lunch, just 'us girls'. I left the restaurant first, using the excuse it takes me longer to get in and out of the car with  my crutches. I put the cake on the table and a few candles. When Mom and Grandma arrived we sang Happy Birthday and gave my husband's design intern the first piece to see if she liked it. She said it was good. Still a little cautiously, we took our pieces and ate. What do ya know, it was good. And the smell was great.

I didn't have 86 candles, We settled for seven.

Happy Birthday Grandma!

Happy Birthday Grandma! May you enjoy your day and your 86th year!