When I last went to visit my Uncle Mike, he had me look through my grandmother Dorothy’s copy of the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook published in 1946. Wedged between pages in the cake section was this recipe in her handwriting.

This makes a delicious toffee cake that tastes a lot better than it looks. I think it might do better as a one-layer sheet cake in a 9 x 13″ pan, but I set out to make this as a layer cake. The batter seemed too overwhelmed by the amount of topping to rise evenly, so it’s possible that Heath bars were smaller when this recipe was invented.

Since this cake was more misshapen than could be disguised with frosting (and I didn’t want to trim it because both layers were already pretty short), I just drizzled hot Chocolate Drizzle Icing on the top edges and then smeared it back out from where it pooled in the center. This hardens in the fridge, making the cake a bit harder to cut but a lot more like a candy bar when cold.

1 stick butter (1/2 c.)
2 c. flour
2 c. brown sugar
1 egg
1 c. milk
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. vanilla
6 Heath bars, crushed
1 c. chopped nuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a cake pan (9×13?)

Mix the butter, flour, and brown sugar together until it forms a crumb-like pie crust. Set aside 1 cup.

To the bulk of the crumb mixture, add the egg, milk, salt, soda, and vanilla until you have a cake batter. Pour the batter into the cake pan.

Mix the candy bars and the cup of the crumbs that had been set aside. Spread them on top of the cake batter, then top with the nuts.

Bake for 35 minutes.