Rat Bait?! Yes, really.
Well to us anyway. The correct name of the recipe to most would be Oatmeal Cake. It got it's current name because Mom had made the cake one day and sent some over for us to eat. Mikey loved it but in his spirit of teasing told Mom it was only good for rat bait and that he needed more to put under the house. Funny thing is, I have never had rats and he's always asking for more rat bait.
This is a dense, heavy cake. For us, the denser the better. On the morning that you accidentally make too much oatmeal would be a great day to make this. Well, actually any day is good because you don't need to cook the oatmeal first.
1 1/2 cups boiling water
1 cup oatmeal
(for a denser cake increase water and oatmeal by 1/2 cup)
1/2 cup butter or margarine
2 eggs
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt (I increased this, the original recipe is a tish)
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour
Preheat oven to 350F.
Mix the boiling water and oatmeal. Set aside for 20 minutes.
Beat together butter, sugars, egg and vanilla.
Add dry ingredients. Mix well. You can use an electric mixer through this point. The batter will be very thick and almost like bars.
Stir in oatmeal with spoon until well blended.
Pour into greased 9x13 pan. (For today I am going to make 2 - 8 inch cakes.)
Bake until done. (Really that's what the recipe says!) But the approximate time is 35-40 minutes.Toothpick will come out clean.
Frost with either cream cheese frosting which is our favorite or a Caramel frosting (think German chocolate frosting) which is the original. It is also the reason I'm making two small cakes. One for each frosting! If the cream cheese frosting in the picture appears pink adjust your monitor. Actually it was left over from the cupcakes so I had to make this cake to use it up.
Boiled Frosting
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup evaporated milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup coconut
1/2 cup chopped nuts (I'm using pecans in this one.)
Boil butter, sugar, milk and vanilla for 10 minutes. Temperature should be 125F or the hard ball stage. Add coconut and nuts. Stir well. Pour over COOLED cake.
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