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.

Getting to Know One's Oven

I've been invited to dinner at the home of some friends who preceded me to Washington and, as I usually have when I dine with them, am bringing dessert.  This, of course, requires use of the oven, something I hadn't done since moving in.  If I am to bake at anything like the rate I did back in Chicago, it's high time I got to know my oven.  (I had already used the stove top, and am pleased to report that it's fin, although the fact that the dials are numbered from 1 to 6 rather than 1 to 10 as they were in Chicago threw me much more than I expected it to.  I'm going to have to start thinking of 6 as high heat, a change from thinking of it as in the middle.  Why aren't these things standardized?)

As I was pressed for time, I whipped up the fastest recipe in my collection, a heavily-edited one which began as Lebanese cookies with a honey glaze (delicious but time-consuming) and has since become a sort of Lemon Tea Biscuit (I keep changing the name).  As I did back at Tales from Second City, here's a picture of the goods:

Yummy, no?  They're sweet and sandy (because the original Lebanese recipe called for oil instead of butter, and I've kept doing it because it gives a different texture from my butter-based cookies), and I'm pleased.  I've discovered that this oven runs about fifteen degrees slow (better than the thirty to fifty degrees I had to deal with in Chicago), but I expected it to - gas stovetops are great, but gas ovens, not so much.

Do you suppose I could get a hybrid?

(P.S.: If anyone wants recipes, either for the original Lebanese cookies or my variation, just ask for them in the comments and I'll put them up.)