Heritage Recipe: Grandma's Busy Day Cake

This recipe was one of the first I hand-copied out of my mother's recipe book when I was a young bride. I have made it many times over the years, and it always turns out beautifully!

You can read a bit more about my AMAZING, faithful, hard-working, inspiring Grandma Nielsen here. She was reunited with my loving Grandpa Nielsen in heaven in August of 2014. I treasure every memory I have of her, and that is one reason why this recipe is such a special one. I can picture her busy in the kitchen, baking this cake for her eight children, and then for her multitude of grandchildren.

Notice the words and artwork added by my son Lliam many years ago. He's now 21 years old.

PRINTABLE RECIPE HERE

Grandma Nielsen’s Busy Day Cake

{From Grandma Lawana Nielsen}

Cake Ingredients:

• 1 ⅔ c. flour
• ¼ tea salt
• 1 ½ tea. cinnamon
• ½ tea. nutmeg
• ¼ tea. cloves
• 2 ½ tea. baking powder
• 1 c. sugar
• 1 egg
• ⅔ c. milk (@ room temperature)
• ⅓ c. shortening

Topping Ingredients:

• 3 Tbl. melted butter
• 5 Tbl. brown sugar
• 3-5 Tbl. cream or evaporated milk (regular milk will do in a pinch.)
• ½ c. coconut and/or chopped nuts

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Sift dry ingredients together.
3. Add remaining ingredients to dry ingredients.
4. BEAT on high for 2 minutes.
5. Pour batter into a greased 9x13 pan.
6. Bake in the preheated 375 oven for 25 minutes.
7. Make topping.
8. Remove cake from oven.
9. Spread topping on top of warm cake.
10. Return cake to oven on high broil-- watch it carefully!
11. Remove from the oven as soon as the topping is brown and bubbly.
12. Serve warm!