Baking with the Boys

Why must the container for Quick Cooking oats look just like the one for Old Fashioned?  Can’t we get some kind of color coding?  When I am at the store I am either in a hurry because I have promised my family I am “only picking up a few things” or I have one or two young boys with me which is the very definition of distraction.  Trips to the grocery store sometimes cause me to regret that the older one now reads.  “Mom, this bowl-o-sugar cereal says it has vitamins.  Can we get it?  These fruit roll-ups are a foot long and it says they are made with fruit.  Can we get it?”  and on and on…

So, you can see why I might get discombobulated and grab the Quick Cooking oats.  And let’s face it, Oliver Twist would never have gotten thrown out of the workhouse if he had been served quick cooking oats.  No asking for seconds of those.   Fortunately, I have discovered that these do have other uses.  They are, apparently, well-suited for certain baked goods because of the amount of liquid they absorb.

I was watching America’s Test Kitchen recently and they made a very simple snack cake with, you guessed it, Quick Cooking Oats.  The recipe is from memory and is not entirely true to the original.  I decided to serve it for breakfast so I skipped the broiled coconut/walnut icing.  Didn’t sound good to us anyway.  It was very moist (a little fragile) and just right for breakfast.

Oatmeal Snack Cake

• 1 c. Quick cooking oats
• 3/4c. room temperature water
• ¾ c. whole wheat pastry flour
• ½ tsp. baking soda
• ½ tsp. baking powder
• ¼ tsp. salt
• ½ tsp. cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp. ground ginger
• ¼ tsp. ground nutmeg
• 4 oz. butter
• ½ c. sugar
• ½ c. brown sugar
• 1 egg

Preheat the oven to 350 and line an 8 inch square pan with foil.  Spray with cooking spray.   In a small bowl, mix the oatmeal and water together.  Set aside.  Whisk the dry ingredients together and set aside.  In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugars together until they look like wet sand.  Add the egg and mix to incorporate.  On low speed, add the dry ingredients in two batches.  Stir in the oats.  Pour into the prepared pan and bake for about 30 minutes.

I have been out of the city all day so I haven’t had a chance to see the tarts.  My guess is that they don’t look quite like this.  Why is my tart ten feet tall?  My mother is involved and we’ll get to the details in a minute.

I am not into New Age mysticism and you won’t see any crystals, horoscopes or the like around my house.  But I have come to believe in the Cake Dome Vortex.  Not familiar with it?  Surely, you have heard of the Bermuda Triangle.  The Cake Dome Vortex functions in much the same way, substituting innocent cake plates for planes.  It also happens to be located in my house.

Once upon a time, I had a lovely domed cake plate from Williams Sonoma.  I used it for seven lovely years without incident.  Then my younger son turned one and my older one decided he would “sample” the cake before it was served.  The plate and the dome both cracked and shattered.  (my father – ever the frugal one – asked if we could still serve it.  i told him that he might not mind glass shards in the icing but i was pretty sure my 3 yr old would never forgive me for shearing his intestines).

My birthday was two weeks later and my father showed up with a replacement domed cake plate.  It lasted four months before the three year old struck again.  This time he only managed to drop the dome.  I took a cake plate break for awhile and years later purchased a large plastic dome cover.  What could go wrong?

Several months into its tenure, my mother managed to simultaneously break off a kitchen cabinet door and shatter the dome.  two for one!  This time, I didn’t even bother to replace it.  A year later a lovely cake plate and dome showed up as an unexpected gift from a family friend.  This was two months ago.

I don’t even have to tell you where this is going.  If you are guessing that my mother broke this one, too, you are paying attention.  Last night.  Right after she remarked on how fragile it was.  Right before she left my tart out to rise to skyscraper like heights.

Sorry, it was laaaate by the time it came out of the oven.

She was watching Colin while I took Will to swim lessons.  Despite my better judgment, I asked her to help with tart.  It was on the last rise before being baked.  I set the timer and asked her to put it in the (already preheated) oven when it went off.  It should have been out of the oven by the time I got home.  It, of course, hadn’t even gone in.

She stopped cooking about the time I started high school and it is like she has never seen a kitchen before.  She did stay over to try the “tart” which we both agreed was a little too bready for us.  If it was supposed to be 837 inches high, than this is not my cup of tea.  oh well, at least it was only half a recipe.

To see of others fared well, check out TWD. The full recipe is on Chez Us by Denise.