Simple Fare, Fairly Simple

IT Guy and I used to live in Tucson Arizona. We had moved into a new house. Our very first new house. And I had a brand new kitchen. On either side of us, we had great neighbors. Young families, like ours, with kids the same age as ours...stay at home moms like me. It was a fun time. And they were great neighbors. The neighbor on our left, Jackie...was a wonder. She could sew anything...cook anything and was always doing creative things to her house. One day, she needed to borrow some butter or something because she was baking. When she borrowed, the way she gave back was to share with us what she had made. This recipe was one of the things she "gave back". The minute I tasted it, I knew I had to have the recipe. It's SO simple and SO not fancy...but it is SO good. The best way to serve it is warm with ice cream or whipped cream. I've been making this cake for at least 30 years and we're not tired of it yet.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cake



1 ¾ cups boiling water
1 cup oats
1 cup lightly packed brown sugar
1 cup sugar
1 stick butter
2 eggs
1 ¾ cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon cocoa
12 ounces chocolate chips
¾ cup chopped nuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Place oatmeal in a large mixing bowl. Pour boiling water over oatmeal and let set for about 10 minutes. Add sugars and butter and stir until butter melts. Add egss and stir. Sift together flour, baking soda, salt and cocoa. Add to oatmeal mixture and stir to combine. Stir in half of the chocolate chips. Pour into a greased 9x13 inch pan. Sprinkle batter with remaining chocolate chips and nuts, if using. Bake for about 40 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Here's all you need.

 

Pour the boiling water over the oatmeal.

 

Let it sit for a little bit.

 

Then add the butter and sugars.

 

Then stir in the eggs.

 

Sift the dry ingredients together.

 

Then dump it into the oatmeal/sugar mixture.

 

Throw in half of the chocolate chips.

 

Pour the mixture into the pan. At this point...

BEFORE you put it in the oven, sprinkle the 

remaining chocolate chips over the batter. I forgot to do this.

 

I remembered about halfway through 

the baking process. It was still very good 

but it turns out better when you put them 

in the raw batter. Just a little FYI for ya'.