My plates are put away, my silverware too. I haven't had time to bake, too many phone calls and delays. Customer service reps and bundle packages. We are trying to figure out how to live on our own again, deer-legged and stumbling a bit. It's different to be back in Pennsylvania; I expected it to be easier because I've called this place home. It's harder than I had thought. Taking longer. It's not like how we rented in California, or Texas, or any other place I ran away to. It's taking the time and energy I don't want to give it and then I get frustrated when things are last minute.

Tomorrow we move. Not officially, but slowly at first. Boxes in my SUV and the dogs meet for the first time in a year on Tuesday. It's not to keep them away, it's to shelter them from any disappointment. We all moved across country a year ago, our family piecemeal as we tried to figure out how to live together again. To forgive again. To move forward again, in a direction that wasn't always backwards.

And even though I am throwing away half-empty bags of flour and plates that got chipped in one of the many moves along the way, I still go to the grocery store and pick up more ingredients. Cranberries were on sale last week, so I made a cranberry cake. Sweetened and tender and warm. The kinds of adjectives I hope to use for this new house of ours.

Cranberry Oatmeal Snack Cake Cake

This recipe is based off of Molly Yeh's Peanut Butter Snack Cake and is so moist (in a good way) with a good crumb and so easy. It really is just a two-bowl-get-er-done kind of cake!

Ingredients:

2 cup sugar
1 ½ cup AP flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup quick cooking oats + 1/3 cup for topping
2 eggs
¾ cup greek yogurt
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup flavorless oil (canola)
¼ cup melted butter + 2 tablespoon for topping
¼ cup peanut butter
6 tablespoons water
½ cup cranberries
¼ cup dark brown sugar for topping

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350*F and prep a ½ sheet cake pan with parchment paper and butter
Whisk all dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl
In a measuring cup or separate mixing bowl, vigorously whisk together eggs, yogurt, vanilla, oil, peanut butter, butter, and water
Create a well in your dry ingredients and, with a wooden spoon, slowly stir as you pour your wet ingredients into the center of the well. You will have a rich, thick batter that is easily spreadable and pourable
Fold in cranberries
Pour into your cake pan
In a small bowl, mix together remaining oats, brown sugar, and butter and top your batter with this
Bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until golden brown. This is a moist cake, so a toothpick will come out crumby but semi-clean
Allow to cool slightly before serving