The other day, I was bored and looking for something to bake. So I did a Twitter call for ideas, and a friend sent me this recipe. It was called “Aunt Cherry’s Oatmeal Cake” and is apparently one of those old recipes with a fictitious name attached — their family baked it all the time growing up, but never knew who Aunt Cherry was. Beyond, you can find similar recipes online that also refer to Aunt Cherry. Based on that, I’m figuring Aunt Cherry wouldn’t mind me putting my spin on it. And of course, now that I realize that the entire internet is public domain (Thanks Cooks Source!), I am going to call it my own. But seriously, Monica Gaudio, if you are out there and you are actually Cherry, just email me for my address and you can send me a check for featuring your work. If I rip off enough people’s work, I might actually find a revenue model for Cuizoo.
The recipe seemed intriguing — not many ingredients, seemingly very easy, and get this: dollops of a butter/brown sugar/coconut/nut mixture dropped into the cake batter before baking. That last part is what got me. There was just no way that could turn out to be anything but delicious. And I figured that I could make it *slightly* more healthy by cutting back on the sugar a bit and substituting whole wheat pastry flour. Obviously, I also needed to remove the nuts because of my daughter’s severe nut allergy.
I decided to make it yesterday and if I only knew Cherry’s last name, I’d write her a thank you note — attached to a big bottle of vodka, and perhaps a personal massage device.  She deserves it. It is that good. And it’s easy. I mean one-bowl-for-the-cake easy. It makes a tremendous dessert (maybe with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream), but I could easily see it served for a special breakfast or brunch too. Because today was Friday, November 12th, I deemed it a special breakfast day and we had it before school. With fruit, of course.
The original recipe calls for walnuts (I substituted sunflower seeds), regular all purpose flour, and 1 cup each of brown and white sugar in the cake (I cut it back to 1/2 cup each in the cake — but left the sugar the same in the dollopy mixture). If you want to go all out, feel free to make it with white flour and the normal amount of sugar.
You can thank me and Aunt Cherry later.
Aunt Cherry’s Sticky Oatmeal Cake
Makes one 9 inch by 13 inch cake
(Adapted from some lady named Cherry, who may or may not be real or alive)
Cake:
1 cup oats (I used old fashioned)
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 1/3 cups of whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 t salt
1 t baking soda
1 t cinnamon
1 t nutmeg
1/2 cup butter, softened (1 stick)
1 1/2 cups boiling water
2 eggsTopping:
1 cup sunflower seeds (or other chopped nuts)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1/4 cup of milk
6 T butter, melted
1 t vanilla
1 cup shredded coconut (not sweetened)1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease a 9 inch by 13 inch glass baking pan.
2. In a large bowl, mix together dry cake ingredients: oats, white sugar, brown sugar, whole wheat pastry flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg. Make sure to break up any lumps of brown sugar.
3. Add boiling water to dry ingredients. Using an electric mixer, beat in softened butter (1 stick). When incorporated, beat in eggs one at a time. The batter will be thin. Pour into greased 9 inch by 13 inch glass baking pan.
4. In a small bowl, mix together topping ingredients: sunflower seeds, brown sugar, white sugar, milk, melted butter, vanilla, and coconut. Drop in small dollops all over the unbaked cake batter.
5. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 45 minutes. Remove and cool on a rack. Send Aunt Cherry a thank you note.
