In about 1956, Baker’s Angel Flake Coconut (General Mills) came up with the idea of ‘cut-up cakes’. My mother always had a love for cake decorating and this idea just added a whole new dimension. The company printed a little booklet with a year’s worth of cut-up cake directions.
The cakes were popular because no special tools or pans were needed. Cakes were baked from your own recipe or from cake mixes, usually in either a 13 x 9″ pan or two 8 or 9″ layers. After the cake was cooled, you followed a pattern given in the recipe booklet and cut the cake as directed with a knife, then put the pieces together to form the desired shape. The cake pieces were then covered with frosting, making it appear as one solid cake.
Most of the designs usually incorporated coconut into the decoration. It looked great and of course we loved it. This was the forerunner to the baking industry developing ‘character’ cake pans in shapes of anything imaginable.
Although this old fashioned oatmeal cake came from that time period, it was not used for one of these cut-up cakes. I just thought it would be nice to include it in this blog since it had that wonderful tasting broiled topping made with the well known ‘Angel Flake‘ coconut. This cake was so good but one minute too long under that broiler could destroy it!
| Prep Time | 20 minutes |
| Cook Time | 38 minutes |
| Passive Time | 10 minutes |
| Servings |
people
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- 1 cup oatmeal
- 1/2 cup margarine
- 1 cup boiling water
- 2 eggs
- 1 - 1 1/4 cups brown sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 cup flour
- 1 Tbsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 3/4 tsp nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 cup margarine melted
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 3 Tbsp cream
- 1/3 cup pecans or walnuts, chopped
- 3/4 cup coconut, shredded or flaked
Ingredients
cake
Frosting
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- In a small bowl, pour boiling water over oatmeal & margarine; let stand for 10 minutes. Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease a 9 x 9" baking dish. In a large bowl, beat eggs with sugar until fluffy. Add vanilla & oat mixture, blend well. Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, nutmeg & cinnamon. Combine flour mixture to creamed mixture, blending carefully. Pour into prepared baking pan; bake 35 minutes or until tests done. Cool for 10 minutes. Do not remove from pan. For Frosting: Combine all ingredients. Spread evenly over cake. Broil until frosting becomes bubbly. WATCH CAREFULLY! Let cake cool enough for the topping to be absorbed into the cake.