Oatmeal Apple Raisin Cake

I think I should go through my old recipe files more often. When I found the previous recipe from 1977 - the Apple Cake, I also found some even older recipes I'd saved. This one, for Oatmeal Cake is from a newspaper clipping about 1950 that my mother had saved. The recipe fairly matches one from my Grandma Long's recipes of the 1930s, so it was probably a widely shared recipe of the time. The original, in my memory, was moist and delicious. Well, I wasn't wrong, this is really good. I had it with an omelette for breakfast this morning.

I can't help but tinker and update recipes, especially old ones, so here is my version, updated, for Oatmeal Apple Raisin Cake.

Why, you may ask, is it only half a cake? Because we had eaten half before I remembered to take the photo!

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

1 cup quick oats (or if you have regular oats, chop for 5 seconds in the food processor)
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup - 1 stick, butter
1 1/2 cups boiling water, into which you put:
 3/4 cup golden raisins and 1/2 cup diced dried apples
1/2 cup shortening
2 eggs

1- Slowly simmer raisins and dried apples for 10 minutes.

2- Cream together the 2 sugars and butter, then add the eggs and mix.
3- Mix together the flour, salt, cinnamon, baking soda and baking powder with the oats.
4- Pour in in the sugar-shortening mixture, then add the very hot water with the raisins and dried apples.
5- Add 1/2 cups nuts if desired.
Pour into a oiled 9 x 13 inch baking pan and bake for about 25 minutes or until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Cool, then add icing if desired (I like it without the icing):
6 tablespoons butter at room temperature
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup half and half
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup flaked, unsweetened coconut
1 cup chopped pecans or other favorite nuts

In medium bowl, combine butter, brown sugar, half and half and beat until smooth. Add coconut and nuts and spread on cooled cake.

Jim Long's Garden: Jim Long's Apple Cake

Jim Long's Garden: Jim Long's Apple Cake

Jim Long's Apple Cake

Back in the 1970s when I was in the landscape design business I used to travel from Missouri to Tennessee early each spring to buy plants from wholesale nurseries in and around McMinnville, TN. On my trips I always searched out good, local restaurants at meal time and that state used to have lots of little mom  and pop cafes, now, sadly gone and replaced with chain restaurants or fast food places.

The employees at one of the wholesale nurseries always ate lunch at the Gay-Lo Cafe downtown. It was run by Gay and her sister, Lois, thus the name. It was one of those blue plate special places I love to find, where you choose from whatever the special of the day was, something like meatloaf or fried chicken or ham, a choice of vegetable and mashed potatoes and gravy. It was good, Southern home cooking. The nursery guys swore the desserts were the best in the state.

After eating at the Gay-Lo for several seasons and always having the apple cake, the owners had come to recognize me. One day I asked Gay if she would sell or share her apple cake recipe and she said, "Sure hon, wait a minute, and I will."

She motioned me over to an empty table and said, "Here, write this down. The recipe has been in my family for generations. Probably everyone around here make it but customers tell me mine is the best."
I wrote the recipe on a napkin just as she dictated it, on March 21, 1977. Over the years I've made only a couple of minor changes, less cinnamon, a little less sugar. A few times I've made it using 3 or 4 rose geranium leaves laid on the bottom of the pan before the batter is poured over. Sometimes I make it and don't put on the icing, it's probably even better that way unless you really like sugar. I hope you enjoy the recipe!

4 cups apples, sliced and sliced again (I like a combination of Jonathan and Granny Smith)
2 cups sugar
2 cups flour
1/2 tablespoon cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 sticks butter, softened
2 eggs

Slice apples and set aside
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F

1- Cream together butter and sugar.
Add eggs and mix well.

2- Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt, mixing
3- Add the flour mixture into the sugar-butter-egg mix, stir together well but don’t over-mix.
4- Add the chopped apples and mix.
5- Pour into oiled and floured 11 x 15 inch cake pan. Bake about 40 minutes or until a knife inserted into cake comes out clean.

Icing - this is really sweet, the cake is good without it, but the original recipe calls for this

1 stick butter, cut in pieces
4 tablespoons milk or water
4 tablespoons brown sugar mixed with 4 tablespoons flour
dash of salt

Bring to a simmer and let cook for about 10 minutes, stirring often.
Add 3/4 cup any kind of favorite nuts.

Spread on still-warm cake.

Go to my website and you'll find more recipes listed in the descriptions of some of my books. Homemade Crackers has a sample recipe, so check that out, too. And you can search this blog for lots more of my recipes, as well.

Missouri State Fair 2017

I've been going to the Missouri State Fair since I was 3 years old. It's an annual event for me. I love the Fair, the people, the exhibits, sometimes the food. My favorite is the pineapple whip, which was sadly lacking this year.

 

The World's Greatest Carnival. At night with all the lights it's pretty amazing. Music everywhere, sometimes too much.

You have to be this tall to ride the rides! Try explaining that to a 3 year old boy!

I love this photo! There are rides for all ages. This kid will remember his father beside him on the Merry-Go-Round when he has kids of his own. I still remember my parents put me on the horse, then stood and watched from the side. This is better.

Great Tilt-a-Whirl, who wouldn't want to ride in a teddy bear's belly!

There's always plenty of fun, bizarre stuff to see. This guy obviously likes what he does.

The 146 lb prize watermelon from Deepwater, Missouri. And giant pumpkins and squashes and everything else in the Agriculture Building. I admit I skip over the corn displays, one ear looks pretty much like the next one, but I don't know anything at all about field corn.

I didn't ask but I'd guess this farm couple has been coming to the Fair longer than I have. Maybe I'll see the Fair that way some day, too.

Or atop the wagon pulled by the famous Budweiser Clydesdales. These huge horses used to be used for pulling enormous wagons and they almost went extinct, so I've been told, but the Budweiser folks are preserving the breed and show them all over the country especially at state fairs.

Farm equipment displays are always interesting. The newest tractors, combines, attachments and all that goes with them. This year one of the featured items was the robotic lawn mower. I didn't see it in action but did wonder if it will pick up all of my dog, Cricket's balls before it mows.

These budding farmers stopped for a rest on a John Deere Tractor wheel. From their gear it looks like they are attached to the John Deere brand.

Carol, who makes our Healthy Feet Soap and our excellent bug-repelling Bug Off bar, was there, too, with her soaps and products.
(You can find our soaps and other products on our website).

The 'velcro' teenagers, as I call them. At least one body part has to, at all times, be touching some body part of the girlfriend/boyfriend.

And that leads to... yet another young kid, being introduced to the Fair by his/her parents.

There are always corndogs (sausage on a stick, covered with batter and deep-fried, for readers in the UK and beyond). I skipped my annual corn dog this year, now I'm hungry for a corn dog with lots of mustard.

 Lemonade, corn dogs and red velvet funnel cakes. I'm not a fan of funnel cakes, and think adding a whole lot of red food coloring probably doesn't make them one bit better.

New this year are curly cones. Vanilla or chocolate. That curly J-shaped thing is a cone and when you order it, soft-serve ice cream is squeezed into the tube, filling it from top to bottom. I didn't have one of those, either. I'm pretty certain you can't eat both ends of the cone without one end or the other melting all over you.

Life is too short to drink cheap booze and argue with stupid people. An, youth. His attitude may change as he ages. Still, examining your standards at a young age isn't a bad thing.

The Fair is all about fun. It's a celebration of farming, of Missouri at its best, of what we raise and how we live. I look forward to a day at the Fair every year, to see and do and be, in a place I've visited for decades.

And a shady spot in the Highway Gardens is welcome, regardless of your age or place in life. This is 3 generations, the grandpa, father and son, all resting and getting ready for one more go at the Midway before heading home.
I had a short nap there, too, before heading back to explore more buildings, pig races, an ice cream cone and heading home.