For New Years Eve on Issuma, I made a Dream Cake. This is a slightly adapted version of my mother's recipe. This a quick and simple cake, as it involves baking twice, and measuring several ingredients (I do a lot of simpler baking without measuring--just mixing ingredients to taste, which saves quite a bit of time).

I made the pie crust and lower layer, and baked them while mixing the upper layer. All was going well, as I removed the cake from the oven and put the upper layer on. I had just enough time to do that and get the cake back into the oven for the second baking and then go back on watch. So I was hurrying. Then a bigger than normal wave hit us (we were close-hauled), the boat rolled, and THE CAKE FELL INTO A SINK FULL OF SOAPY SALT WATER!

After some cursing, I took the now-salty & soapy cake out of the sink, threw it over the side, asked Maggie to take part of my watch, and started all over again.

Max made an excellent wahoo dinner, after which I was too full to have any, so Max was the first to try it on his night watch, after which he wrote the note above (this is a high calorie dessert).

Dream Cake:
1) Make a pie/pastry crust and put it on the bottom of a medium-sized (bigger than a pie pan) pan.

2) Make the lower layer:
* 1/2 cup (120 ml) flour
* 1/2 cup (120 ml) butter
* 1/4 cup (60 ml) brown sugar
Mix, spread on top of the pie-crust bottom, bake 15 minutes at 375F/190C

3) Make the upper layer:
* 2 eggs
* 1 cup (240 ml) nuts
* 1.5 cups ( ml) brown sugar
* 1/2 cup (120 ml) flour
* 1 cup (240 ml) shredded coconut
* 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
Mix and spread over baked cake. Bake 20 minutes at 375F/190C. Cool. Serve as small pieces.