Chocolate Porritch Cake

So many of my recipes take root from the highly-rated (in terms of frequency rated and stars awarded) annals of allrecipes.com.  It’s just a damned easy way to cook – I bring Ralph’s laptop into the kitchen and get started.  For part of our Christmas Eve repast I made changes to a (likely already perfectly delicious) recipe for Chocolate Oatmeal Cake; it was very, very delicious and surprisingly addictive.  This cake involves oats – which give it an excellent crumb – and, thanks to an episode of “Garth Merenghi’s Darkplace”, I felt I must use the Scottish phraseology in reference.

1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1 cup boiling water
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons cocoa
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease one 8 x 8 inch pan. In a large bowl, mix together the rolled oats and butter. Mix in boiling water. Set aside to cool. Beat together the brown sugar, eggs and vanilla; add to cooled oat mixture and mix well. Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cocoa. Add to wet ingredients and mix well; fold the chocolate chips in. Spread into the prepared pan and bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 40 minutes. Remove from oven, allow to cool, and remove pan.