The Legendary Cake that Inspired Larceny: Jason’s Mom’s Secret Oatmeal Cake Recipe
Beyond the Paywall: The Oatmeal Cake That Stole Our Hearts (and the Best Piece of the Cake!)
[Editor’s nom,nom,nom] Yah!! Oatmeal cake happens to be my absolute favourite!!! Yet, until Colleen wrote this article and I was trying to find the source of the recipe online, I’d never been able to actually appreciate how distinct and ‘worked over’ this recipe was due to my mother’s decades of fashioning and perfecting it. Wow, just wow. But now I feel I have to apologize to our regular Food Explorers because only those who are beyond the paywall will get the recipe! Well, to the paid subscribers a HUGE THANKS but to everybody else - thanks for reading, cause we luv ya all !! :) [JMC]
I love baking, but I hardly ever do any baking any more. I’m not sure why I’ve fallen out of baking, but I used to bake muffins, loaves, like banana bread, and so many cookies! Of course, cakes and brownies were a staple too, I even went through a phase where I made scones all the time - delicious! But nowadays, I find that unless I’m with who bakes somebody I don’t really do a lot of it myself. So I’m super grateful for Jason‘s mom Eily (EYE-lee) always saying, “Yes!” when I want to come over and make cakes with her. And then of course, my friend Grace, who loves baking and is always happy to let me help in her kitchen with fresh sourdough breads, cookies, and muffins.
Speaking of … recently, I decided to do a very short trip to Canmore as a bit of a recharge as I have been working like crazy with my Indigenous entrepreneur students by creating a tonne of content for their courses and their fledgling businesses PLUS trying to organize everything else that needs to happen before the Christmas chocolate markets and retailing season. Whew, I just wanted to take a little break and head to my favourite place to spend time with Jason and especially our friends Jim and Grace who also serve as my long time tasters of all creations chocolate.
It so happened the trip coincided with Jim‘s birthday and we know from past trips that Oatmeal cake is definitely one that he likes. So I messaged Jason‘s mom who is the keeper of the oatmeal cake recipe and asked her if I could come over and make some cakes with her; it’s always a perfect way to spend an afternoon!
I sat down with Jason‘s mom to talk about the oatmeal cake while it was cooking; I of course wanted to know where the recipe originally came from but well, it’s a bit of a mystery. She did get the recipe from her mom who was born in 1927. But there’s no other reference to the recipe’s origins so I started looking on the internet after I left with cake in hand. I started searching for the recipe, trying sites such as Quaker Oats because their packages often included recipes, and then I switched to trying to find some old-fashioned recipe books where maybe the recipe was hidden. But here’s the crazy thing: the exact technique for the oatmeal cake that Jason‘s mom makes is not one that I can find anywhere! I did find many really weird and crazy and different recipes for oatmeal cake but I have no idea if they even work out because the techniques were banana pants! But the actual recipe with the extra techniques that Jason’s mom uses, was nowhere we looked (I enlisted Jason’s help too). So I’m going to include all of her tips here so that you could be successful with making this cake as well.
The other interesting thing I asked her was, “Have you always made this oatmeal cake?” I know it is a favourite for some of her children, there are eight of them! [Editor’s note] Eight children but only one favourite - me! [JMC] And she said it was a recipe that kind of came through rotation. Originally it was every once in a while, she would make it when somebody would request it. But then it became the cake that was Jason‘s favourite birthday cake.
Jason’s Favourite Cake Aside: [Jason] Ok, ok, okay. Hahahaha. One famous story in my family happened when I came back from Taiwan one year (I worked overseas as a teacher for about 12 years). As I remember it, one sister had requested the cake for her birthday even though everybody knows it's my favourite cake. As it so happens, as the cakes are cooling, my mother covers them with tin foil but has to tent them with toothpicks sticking out of them to make sure the covering doesn’t stick to the delicious brown sugar, butter and heavy cream topping. And gravity always makes this addictive topping pool in the middle of the cake which makes it the sought after piece and it usually goes to the birthday person which was always me! So on this one particular occasion somehow the center of the cake was perfectly cut out and disappeared and no one knew (because of the tin foil tenting) until after supper when the foil was unwrapped to put candles in the cake for the birthday singing. You have to imagine about 20 people hearing the crinkle of the tin foil being pulled back, then a collective gasp followed by “Who stole the best piece of the cake?!” followed by my uproarious laughter in the other room where I was hiding while enjoying said piece! Hahaha. I’m still laughing. [JMC]
So besides all that I found out why she really likes to make this cake; Jason‘s mom had a great answer. She told me, “It’s easy to make, I know it’ll be appreciated, all the kids like it, it freezes great, and you can lick the spoons! Yes you can!”
So, how do we make this? What are all those tips and tricks to the glorious Chouinard Oatmeal Cake??! [Sorry all you free subscribers! But comments are paywalled too. Wah waaaa.]
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