It occurs to me that I have been spending far, far too much time in this blog on the "Cyclist" part of "Fat Cyclist." So, today, I'd like to present what has been determined by Renowned Scientists and Certified Dessert Experts around the globe as the Best Cake in the World.

It is a Chocolate-Chip-Oatmeal cake. It is not a fluffy, airy cake that collapses away to oxygen and a whiff of chocolate when you put it in your mouth. No. It is a substantial cake, something you could make a meal of. The oatmeal keeps it dense and moist, and the chocolate keeps it chocolatey.

Do not put frosting on this cake. Frosting is what most cakes need to hide the fact that they are dry, over-airy, and flavorless.

I promise you, if you make this cake, you eat will three pieces before nightfall. You will gain three pounds before dawn. And you will look for reasons to make this cake again soon. You will make this cake whenever you are asked to bring a dessert over to a picnic, and you will be invited to an increasing number of picnics when people learn that you will bring this cake.

Your enemies will approach you to resolve your differences, just so they can have some of this cake.

I will, by coincidence, be making this cake later this afternoon for my wife, for it is her birthday. I will also give her an iPod, onto which I will copy our entire library of music — importing this library into iTunes has been a tedious labor, and ordinarily my wife would appreciate the work that has gone into it. But when she sees that I have made this cake, I expect she will toss the iPod — now forgotten — into a box and will throw her arms around me, grateful that I have gone to the effort of making her The Best Cake in the World.

I only hope that I have not undersold this cake.

Recipe for the Best Cake in the World

(note: I made mistakes when I originally typed this. These mistakes are now fixed. I am a fool, and apologize for any botched desserts I have caused.)

Ingredients

1 3/4 cup boiling water — do not put your fingers in this water, for it is hot!

1 cup oatmeal — regular oatmeal, not instant, you cretin.

1 c. brown sugar — how come it tastes so good?

1 c. white sugar — I have no clever comment to add to this ingredient, unless you consider this comment clever.

1 stick butter — No, don't use margarine. Use butter. Margarine is gross.

1 tsp baking soda — I tried brushing my teeth with baking soda. Once.

1/2 tsp salt — Or go crazy and put in a whole teaspoonful.

1 3/4 cup flour — Warning: flour may contain wheat products.

2 eggs — From a chicken; ostrich eggs are too big, and taste nasty.

1 pkg milk chocolate chips, or semi-sweet if you think you are too good for regular milk chocolate chips.

Instructions

Pour the boiling water over the oatmeal and stir. It's best if the aforementioned pouring of boiling water over said oatmeal occurs in a bowl. Stir and let set for 10 minutes. Put the butter in about 5 minutes into this ten minutes, so it can melt.

Meanwhile…

Stir together in a different bowl:

• Flour
• Baking soda
• Salt

Once the 10 minutes has elapsed…

Stir the brown sugar and white sugar into the oatmeal mixture.

Beat the eggs in a separate bowl, then stir the eggs into the oatmeal mixture.

Mix the flour mixture into the oatmeal mixture. You should now have one mixture. If you have more than one mixture, you need to reevaluate some life choices you made in your childhood.

Stir half the chocolate chips into this mixture. Do not snitch more than 5% of the chocolate chips as you do this.

Grease and flour (or, in my house, just spray with Pam) a 9 x 13 pan. Note that this is an update. Originally I said that "you should use a 9 x 9 pan. Or an 8 x 10 pan. Or a 40 x 2 pan. Something that comes out to about 80 square inches." I was guessing. I was wrong. I regret the error. I have other regrets as well, but another time, another time.

Pour the cake batter in, then sprinkle the other half of the bag of chocolate chips on top.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes, or until the center of the cake is not a gooey mess. Let cool at least a little bit or the molten chocolate will burn the living daylights out of the roof of your mouth.  

Serve warm, or at room temperature if you must. With vanilla ice cream if at all possible.

Eat.

Rejoice.

Today's weight: 163.0 lbs. I'm treating this as this week's Fat Cyclist Sweepstakes weigh-in, just a day early. I'm absolutely not going to not eat cake and ice cream with my family tonight.