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Hominy Bread for Breakfast
3 cupfuls cooked hominy 2 tablespoonfuls melted Crisco 1 1/2 cupfuls cornmeal 2 eggs 1 teaspoonful salt 2 teaspoonfuls baking powder 2 cupfuls milk Beat eggs, add milk and hominy. Sift in cornmeal, add baking powder and salt; add Crisco. Beat all together three minutes. Pour into deep Criscoed pan and bake one hour in slow oven. Serve hot.
Sufficient for one large loaf.
A spoonbread-style batter bread rather than a loaf you slice cold. The important thing is the pan: this is a wet batter that needs depth and a long, gentle bake.
- Slow ovenRead this as 300-325F. At higher heat the outside sets and browns long before the center of a deep, wet batter is done, and an hour is a long time at 350F for this much dairy and egg.
- What hominy means here"Cooked hominy" in a book of this period may mean either whole hulled kernels or grits boiled soft; the wet, batter-like result suggests soft-cooked grits or mashed hominy rather than whole canned kernels. Cook until thick and porridge-like, then cool somewhat before adding the eggs so they do not scramble.
- CriscoThe book was written to promote it, so the brand name appears constantly. Any neutral solid or liquid fat works; 2 tablespoons melted vegetable oil, butter or bacon fat is the same thing. "Criscoed pan" simply means greased.
- The pan"Deep" is the operative word. A 2-quart baking dish or a deep 8-inch square pan gives the batter enough depth to stay custardy in the middle. A shallow sheet pan will dry it out well before the hour is up.
- Baking powder timingThe recipe sifts the cornmeal in and then adds the baking powder, which is backwards by modern habit. Whisk the baking powder and salt into the cornmeal first so they distribute evenly, then combine.
- Beat all together three minutesThere is no wheat flour here, so nothing to overdevelop; the long beating presumably helps break up hominy lumps and aerate the batter. Two to three minutes with a hand mixer on medium is plenty.
- DonenessLook for a puffed, browned top that is set but still slightly soft at the center; a knife inserted an inch from the edge should come out clean. Total time will run 55-70 minutes depending on pan depth.
- Yield and servingOne large loaf serves 6 to 8. Serve it spooned from the dish while hot, with butter, alongside eggs, sausage or ham. It collapses and turns pasty once cold, so it does not keep well.
This comes from one of the Crisco-sponsored cookbooks that appeared after Procter & Gamble put hydrogenated vegetable shortening on the American market in 1911; the recipes were written to demonstrate that the new fat could stand in for butter and lard in everything from pastry to fried fish, which is why the brand name is repeated in the instructions rather than a generic "shortening." The dish itself is older than the fat: cornmeal batter breads enriched with leftover cooked grits or mush are a Southern habit going back well into the nineteenth century, appearing under names like spoonbread, batter bread and hominy bread, and they are often said to owe their popularity to the use they make of the previous day's pot of grits. Placing it under breakfast is traditional and practical -- a hot, soft, spoonable bread is generally associated with the Southern morning table, and unlike a yeast loaf it could be mixed and in the oven while the rest of the meal came together.