Icelandic Happy Marriage Cake

I went to Iceland a little over a month ago.  My trip inspired the smoked salmon and egg sandwich I posted earlier.  I also ate some delicious lamb stews, mounds of chocolate covered licorice, and a happy marriage cake.  I searched for a happy marriage cake recipe and decided to give it a try.

I wish I knew more about the origin of this cake.  It has a fantastic name, and I want to know why.  According to another blog, this cake is all that is required for a women to make her husband happy.  The same blog also said the ingredients are common in Icelandic kitchens.  

The blog also said rhubarb is growth throughout Iceland.  I guess it likes the cold, inhospitable climate.  I ate a piece of rhubarb caramel in Iceland, and it was fantastic.

Another online source said that just like marriage, this cake gets better with time.  I hope that is the origin of the name because that's adorable.

I found the recipe on food.com.  I was a delicious cake, but it wasn't at all like the happy marriage cake I had in Iceland.  This was more dense and buttery.  The cake was darker too.  The cake in Iceland was lighter and more like cake.  This version was like an oatmeal cookie.  

The ingredients are 1 cup oatmeal, 1 cup all-purpose flour, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup white sugar, 1 teaspoon baking soda,1 cup butter, 1 egg, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, and 3/4 cup rhubarb jam.

I combined the oatmeal, flour, brown sugar, white sugar, and baking soda.

I added the butter.  I mashed the butter into the mixture with my fingers.

I mixed in the egg and vanilla.

I pressed two thirds of the dough in a nine inch cake pan that I had lined with parchment and greased.

I spread the rhubarb jam over the oatmeal cake mixture.

I crumbled the remaining third of the cake mixture evenly on top of the jam.

The instructions says to bake the cake for 20 to 25 minutes at 400 degrees.  After 20 minutes the cake was undercooked but very brown.  I reduced the temperature to 350 and baked for another 10 minutes.

I let the cake cool a little in the pan before removing it from the tin and letting it cool completely on a wire rack.

This cake had a butter and sweet flavor.  The texture was dense and chewy.  It was more like a bar cookie than a cake.

The flavor was rich and appetizing.  As I said earlier, it was not like the cake I ate in Iceland, and I preferred the cake I had in Iceland.  It was good, but just not as good as I had hoped.