Wednesday: 3/10/10

God has given us two hands:- one to receive with and the other to give with. We are not cisterns made for hoarding; we are channels made for giving.|

Billy Graham

Oatmeal Cake
1 ¼ cups boiling water
1 cup rolled oats
½ cup butter or margarine, softened
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
¾ teaspoon of cinnamon
½ teaspoon of salt
¼ teaspoon of nutmeg (we used this and then freshly grated some to go with it.)
Combine water and oats in a small bowl; set aside.

Place butter, brown sugar, and sugar in bowl. Attach bowl and flat beater. Turn to speed 4 and beat 1 minute. Stop and scrape bowl.

Add vanilla. Turn to speed 4 and add eggs, one at a time, beating 15 seconds after each addition. Stop and scrape bowl. Add oat mixture, flour, soda, cinnamon, salt, and nutmeg. Turn to speed 4 and beat 30 seconds.

Pour batter into greased and floured 9 x 9 x 2-inch pan. Bake at 350 degrees F for 50-55 minutes. Cool cake in pan. When cool, top with Broiled Coco-Walnut Topping

Yield: One 9-inch cake

*My notes* We doubled the ingredients (started with the Kitchenaid but I made a mistake with the oatmeal so we needed to double it so I transferred everything to the Bosch mixer) and I added more nutmeg and chocolate chips --- ideas from my creative DIL!
I also put the topping on the cakes while the cake was hot and it was delicious!

Broiled Coco-Walnut Topping
¾ cup shredded coconut
½ cup chopped walnuts
½ cup brown sugar
¼ cup butter or margarine, melted
3 Tablespoons heavy cream

Combine all ingredients thoroughly. Spread on top of cake. Place under broiler until topping is bubbly. Cool before serving.
From: The KitchenAid Cookbook

Wednesday with my DIL and three of my grandlittles was today and what a day it was! The first part of the morning consisted of me doing laundry, mopping the kitchen floor and doing some basic tidying and my DIL taking three kids in the rain on errands without an umbrella!

I wanted to bake something so the warmth created by the oven and the comfort of home baked goods would make things inside more welcoming.

We had salads for lunch (left overs from last night and I’ll share that in another post) and ended up adding French bread and roasted garlic hummus. So good!

We bounced babies on our knees while going through cookbooks and Brandy found the Oatmeal cake recipe. Great idea!

This was well loved by us and the three teen girls who came talking and laughing in from school later this afternoon.

We watched a movie (“Murder In Coweta County” --- a true story and had Andy Griffith and Johnny Cash in it) and visited until this evening. We were both so tired and longed for naps but those are pretty non-existent. {Smile}