The oven mouse

Sometime back, I shared about a mouse that was living in my stove, particularly the oven. Well, we got that one, but another showed up and he was a cheeky bugger. 

One afternoon, I was cleaning up from lunch and had to go to the back for something When I walked back into the kitchen, I found said mouse trying to drag a piece of ham fat down the oven vent slot on the back of the stove. I took after him with a spatula, but he was not only cheeky, but fast, too.

He made another appearance a few days later when Angie and I were in the kitchen talking. The cheeky little bugger stuck his head out of that vent and just looked at us. I grabbed the spatula again, but he was still too fast. He dove off the stove and down behind it. 

Now I am in hunting mode. I am going to get that mouse, whatever it takes. I don’t want him showing up in my coffee cake some morning. So I start looking for better traps. The ones we had been using were getting old, I think, because mice had gotten loose from them a few times and I think this cheeky mouse was one of them. He was wary of our normal traps. Besides, they are pretty flat, so I was afraid he might not be killed right away and would drag the trap down through the slots in the oven into the burner part. I really didn’t want that. 

Into town I went! I found a mousetrap called JAWZ. They are wicked: the grizzly trap of the mousetrap world. They have teeth on the jaws and everything. Plus they are pretty good sized so I didn’t have to worry about it getting pulled out of the oven or into the burner.

I also thought maybe he was tired of peanut butter, so I switched it up to Swiss cheese. I set the trap in the oven and waited. The next morning when Rick checked the trap… sure enough, we had that cheeky little mouse! JAWZ did the trick. At the time, we had discussed my propensity to turn the oven on and forget to check to see if there was anything in it (I do sometimes store my cast-iron skillets there) and I decided to leave the trap there to see if Cheeky had any friends still hanging around. 

Well, on Saturday, I decided to bake a coffee cake for a late breakfast. I turned the oven on and was mixing the cake when I smelled something awful. Sure enough, I forgot to take the trap out of the oven and it had started to melt. So I grabbed a spatula, slid it underneath, and threw the trap in the trash, then I scrubbed the spot in the oven and turned it up really high to get the smell burned out. 

The cake didn’t taste like plastic at all. 

Here is the coffee cake recipe. It is awesome because it works well with gluten-free flour, can be made dairy-free, and even vegan very easily.

Cowboy Coffee Cake

2½ cups flour

½ teaspoon salt

2 cups brown sugar (I usually use 1½ cups)

2/3 cup shortening

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon soda

½ teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon nutmeg

1 cup sour milk (for dairy-free or vegan, use any plant-based milk with 1 tablespoon vinegar)

2 eggs or equal amount of egg substitute. 

Combine dry ingredients. Add milk and eggs, mix well. Pour into two 8x8 pans sprayed with non-stick spray (I use one 9x13 instead). If you want a topping on your cake, mix some nuts, brown sugar, and butter and sprinkle over the top. Bake at 375º for 25-30 minutes.