Lembas?

I am in the habit of experimenting with recipes, but when I have people over I'm not necessarily willing to experiment on them.  However, I am perfectly willing to deploy experiments that have proven their worth at past gatherings, and I want to share one of them

This afternoon I hosted a mini-reunion for some of the people in my academic program back in Chicago who are now out here in DC - some working for the government, some not - in honor of another member who is still in school at Chicago but came out for the March for Life (yes, well, no one's perfect).  Because I spent most of my time cleaning, I didn't have hours to spend in the kitchen, so I threw together this recipe, which I developed out of a recipe for shortbread and now serve as a cake.  I share it because it's quick, it's easy, and you cannot mess it up (you'd really have to try).  And it's so good I've taken to nicknaming it lembas - after the elven waybread from J.R.R. Tolkein's masterwork.

Oatmeal Shortbread
1 c. butter, softened
3/4 c. sugar
1-1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1-1/2 c. quick-cooking oats
3/4 tsp. salt
1-1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. vanilla

Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy.  Add the salt, spices, and vanilla.  Gradually add the oats and flour (you can add them all at once, but you have to stir more).  Press the dough into a greased 9-inch round cake pan (or another size, if you prefer) and bake at 325 for roughly half an hour - because there's no egg you don't need to worry about undercooking - just cook it long enough for it to no longer be wet and sticky, or until it passes the toothpick test (an inserted toothpick comes out clean).  I've been topping this with failed toffee that K gave me, which melts down in the oven to make a lovely sugary top, but once that runs out I'm not sure what I'll use instead.  Brown sugar, I suppose.

This is my lembas.  Of course, I don't know if the elves had oats.  And there are others who purport to have a recipe for lembas.  A quick Google search reveals a raisin version (to which I object on principle, because there weren't raisins in lembas, surely, or Tolkein would have mentioned them), a lemon version, an almond version (right out, since J is allergic to almonds), and this honey and orange version which, unlike the others, appears to have some research behind it.  I can't get behind the idea of fruit in lembas, though, because I feel like that's a detail that some character would have remarked on, or that Tolkein would have used as a descriptor.  I can't help but envision them as a sort of honey shortbread, and while my recipe doesn't have honey in it, I'm sure I could do some tweaking...

(Yes, you did just a read a whole paragraph in which I speculated about the composition of a fictional bread from a fiction series and then pondered changing a recipe in the real world to reflect a fictional unknown.  If you think that's bad, you should see how I used to react to Harry Potter.)

If you have an idea for lembas - or any other recipe you'd like to share - leave it in the comments.  I'm going to go have my [elven?] cake and eat it too.