Cheese and Oatmeal Cakes

I've made several oat-based snacks on this site, but one thing they all had in common was their chewiness. These oat cakes, based on the ones mentioned in the book Lord Brocktree, are super crunchy and perfect for chip cravings.

Cheese and Oatmeal Cakes

Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 25 minutes
Total time: 30 minutes

Yield: 6 cakes

Ingredients

• 1 cup quick oats
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 tbsp butter, melted
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 380F.
2. Mix together the oats, baking soda, and salt.
   
3. Mix in the melted butter.
   
4. Add water one tablespoon at a time until the oats start to stick together. You might not use all of the water; I only used about 5 tablespoons.
   
5. Stir in the Parmesan.
   
6. Press the mixture into the bottom of six ramekins and bake for 25 minutes, or until golden brown.
   
7. Let cool completely on a cooling rack, then tip out of the ramekins. You may need to loosen then from the edge with a knife first. 
   

Seedcake

It's always bewildered me that banana bread is considered "bread" while poppy cake is considered "cake" when they're both highly-sweetened baked loaves...Anyway, this seed cake tastes wonderful even with half the sugar I mention in this recipe, so feel free to make it as sweet -- or not sweet -- as you like. Be careful when folding the wet ingredients into the dry -- the vinegar and baking soda will react to make bubbles and you don't want to pop those.

Seedcake

Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 45 minutes
Total time: 50 minutes

Yield: 1 loaf

Ingredients

• 2 cups white whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 2 tbsp poppy seeds
• pinch salt
• 1 1/4 cups milk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/3 cup white or apple cider vinegar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375F
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, poppy seeds, and salt
   
3. In another bowl, whisk together milk, oil, vinegar, and vanilla until well combined
   
4. Pour the wet ingredients into dry and carefully fold together
   
5. Pour batter into a loaf pan that you've either greased or lined with parchment paper
   
6. Bake for about 45 minutes, or until golden brown

Sweet Oatcakes

Sweet oatcakes, just like the baked apples, were discovered in The Outcast of Redwall when Sunflash was teaching the hares of Salamandastron how to cook. They are made with milk, honey, dried fruit, and nuts and can be cut into squares for easy snacking. For mine, I used dried blueberries and chopped walnuts -- a combination I find particularly wonderful, especially with the addition of some cinnamon. Feel free to use your own favorites, though. I bet dried cherries and chopped almonds would also be fabulous.

Sweet Oatcakes

Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 45 minutes
Cool time: 10 minutes
Total time: 1 hour

Yield: 8-16 bars, depending on how big you want them

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups rolled oats
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (or other nut)
• 1/2 cup dried blueberries (or other fruit)
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 2 tbsp water
• 1 tbsp oil
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/4 cups milk
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp honey

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350*F.
2. Mix together the oats, nuts, fruit, and cinnamon.
   
3. Mix together the water, oil, and baking powder (this is making a binding similar to an egg), then add the milk, vanilla, and honey.
   
4. Mix together the wet and dry ingredients. At this point, you will think that I have missed an instruction or ingredient because you will have a bowl of wet oats sitting in a puddle of milk. Don't despair and don't add anything. This is how it's supposed to be, I promise. It'll all work out. 
   
5. Pour the mixture into a greased 7x11 inch pan and use a spoon or your fingers to spread the oats into an even layer. The milk should spread itself out on the bottom.
   
6. Bake for 40-45 minutes, or until the top is golden brown. Remove from the oven and let cool completely in the pan on a rack before cutting.
   

Apple Cake

The idea of apple cake came up in Mariel of Redwall. After some thought, I decided I wanted to make it in the style of a pineapple upside down cake. I used honeycrisps, which are super-sweet, and added very little sugar to the cake itself. If you use apples which are more tart, you may wish to increase the amount of sugar to compensate.

A note: I baked this in a 8x8-inch square pan because I wanted to cut it into many small, easily share-able pieces. If you are planning on only splitting this between a few people, though, feel free to bake it in a 9-inch round pan like a normal cake.

Apple Cake

Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 45 minutes
Total time: 1 hour

Yield: 1 9-inch cake

Ingredients

• 2 honeycrisp apples
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 1/5 cups white whole wheat flour
• pinch salt
• 1/2 cup oil
• 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions

1. Peel the apples and slice them thinly. I used my mandolin on the 1/6" setting. A knife would work well, too, just try to cut them as thinly as you can.
2. Arrange apple slices to cover the bottom of your pan. Dice any remaining slices.
   
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients (baking soda through salt).
   
4. In a small bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients (oil through vanilla).
   
5. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and gently mix until just combined. You should have a very thick dough.
   
6. Add in the chopped leftover apple.
   
7. Gently press the dough into the pan, taking care to not disrupt your apple slices.
   
8. Bake for about 45 minutes, or until golden brown. 
   
9. Let the cake cool (preferably on a rack) COMPLETELY (don't get impatient like me and do this too soon), then invert the cake onto a platter so the apple slices are on top.
10. Cut up the cake and enjoy! If desired, sprinkle with powdered sugar or top with ice cream.

Cherry Cake

The book Salamandastron was a big one for food, with all of the feasts with the hares. One of the many desserts mentioned was a cherry cake. For a while I was toying with the idea of making a vanilla cake with chunks of cherries mixed in, but I was worried about how the fresh fruit would handle the heat of baking. Then I saw a recipe for cherry cupcakes on a blog I follow and decided to use that idea. I used very little sugar in these because my fresh cherries were ripe and sweet. You may need to add a little more if yours are underripe.

Cherry Cake



Prep time: 20 minutes (less if you're a faster cherry pitter than I am)
Cook time: 20 minutes
Total time: 40 minutes

Yield: 1 cake (I recommend 8 slices)

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup all purpose white flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 30 fresh cherries
• 2 tbsp milk 
• 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 3 tbsp canola oil
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350.
2. Stem, halve, and pit the cherries. You should end up with about two cups of cherry halves
3. In a large bowl, mix together the flours, sugar, baking powder, and baking soda.
4. Place cherries, milk, vinegar, oil, and vanilla into a blender and puree until smooth. It's ok if you have some bits of cherry skin still floating around.
   
5. Pour the cherry mixture into the flour mixture and mix very gently. The baking soda and vinegar will react and you don't want to push out the air. 
   
6. Pour the batter into a cake pan and bake for 20 minutes or until the top is dry and a toothpick comes out clean.
7. Cool in the pan on a rack until ready to slice and serve.

Hazelnut Cakes

These mini cakes were made with the leftover hazelnuts from the Dandelion, Hazelnut, and Fennel Salad. These nutty, buttery little cakes are great on their own, or you can top them with berry jam -- raspberries or blueberries would both go quite well. (It's not particularly "Redwally," but I made a thin chocolate ganache by melting together a quarter cup of chocolate and a a quarter cup of milk and pouring it over the cakes. It was great.)

Hazelnut Cakes

Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 10 minutes
Total time: 25 minutes

Yield: 8 two-inch cakes

Ingredients

• 6 tbsp chopped hazelnuts
• 4 tbsp butter, softened
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white whole wheat flour
• 2 tbsp milk (I used homemade hazelnut milk, but any milk should work)

Directions

1. In a food processor, pulse the hazelnuts until they become a fine meal. (Be careful not to pulse too long or the oils will release and you can end up with hazelnut butter).
   
2. Cream together the butter and brown sugar.
   
3. Add the hazelnut powder and flour to the sugar mixture and mix thoroughly. You should have a dry, crumbly dough at this point.
   
4. Add the milk, baking powder, and baking soda and mix to combine. The dough should be thick and quite sticky.
   
5. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil. 
6. With wet hands, shape the dough into eight circular cakes. My circles were about 2 inches in diameter.
   
7. Preheat oven to 325F. While the oven is heating, place the baking sheet in the fridge. This will cool the cakes so they retain their shape better. 
8. Bake for about 10 minutes, or until a toothpick poked into the center of a cake comes out clean. (I should note that I turned off my oven after five minutes because it has an exposed coil which likes to burn things. The internal thermometer still read 325 at the ten minute mark, though.)
9. Remove the baking sheet from the oven and place it on cooling racks. Cool about ten minutes, or until the cakes stiffen, then enjoy. These will keep in the fridge for at least a week.