I carry no phone An aspiring Luddite In a wired world. Mastodon Verification Link	Jeff Berry is an early adopter of the Internet and the Web, a late adopter of Twitter, and declines to adopt Facebook. With the death of Google+, he migrated to the Fediverse. He admins a medievalist Mastodon instance. He hates cell-phones.

Every now and then, I find myself taken with the urge to create something using a variety of odds-and-ends from my larder. Often I have bits and bobs left over from some recipe or other and, gazing at them, inspiration strikes. Such was the case with this cake.

Jeff's Holiday Cake

• 1 cup whey (see below)
• 1/3 cup honey
• 1/4 cup each raisins, dates and prunes
• 2 Tbs crème fraiche
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup shredded, sweetened coconut
• 2 cups oat flour (see below)

You could easily vary the fruit, if you like, either the amounts or the kinds. I'd steer clear of the glazed, sticky kind, though, and stick mostly with simple dried ones: currents would be good; candied ginger would probably mesh nicely with the coconut; and so on.

The texture is moist, thanks to the coconut and oat flour, perhaps a little on the chewy side, but much more edible (to my mind) than most fruitcakes.

Whey
I usually have whey about; it's an occupational hazard for cheesemakers. As a result, I often use it in cooking and specifically in baking. If you don't have any whey handy, I suggest you start making your own cheese. Failing that, a 50%-50% mix of water and buttermilk works fairly well, although the amount of flour may need to be adjusted.

Oat Flour
Not every one has oat flour on hand, either, I suspect. One could substitute regular wheaten flour, but the final product will be significantly different. Oat flour, unlike whey, is pretty easy to find at the grocery store, however, so I recommend hunting some up, since it makes the texture of this cake something special.