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Griddle Cake, American
The true American griddle cakes are made as follows:--Boil a pint and a half of milk, and gradually pour it on to half a pint of Indian cornmeal. Mix together half a pint of flour, one tea-spoonful of salt, one tea-spoonful of cream of tartar, half a tea-spoonful of carbonate of soda, and two table-spoonfuls of sugar. When the scalded cornmeal is cool, add to it the flour, etc., and two eggs well beaten. Have the frying-pan ready, very hot, and put a teasspoonful of butter into it. When this is hot, pour in a table-spoonful of the mixture, and fry on both sides until brown. (See also AMERICAN BREAKFAST OR GRIDDLE CAKES.)
A cornmeal-and-flour pancake batter built on scalded meal, written for British readers in imperial measure. The scalding step is the whole point of the recipe and the one most likely to be rushed.
- Let the scalded meal coolThe boiling milk is poured over the cornmeal to soften and gelatinise it, which is what keeps the cakes tender rather than gritty. If the eggs go in while the mush is still hot they scramble, and the soda begins to work before the pan is ready.
- Imperial pintsCassell's pint is 20 fl oz. A pint and a half of milk is about 3 3/4 cups; half a pint of cornmeal is about 1 1/4 cups, and half a pint of flour is about 1 1/4 cups (roughly 5 1/2 oz).
- Indian cornmealIndian meal is plain cornmeal, yellow or white, not cornflour/cornstarch and not masa. A medium or fine grind absorbs the hot milk best; coarse stone-ground meal will want a longer soak.
- Cream of tartar and sodaTogether these are an improvised baking powder, here in the 2:1 proportion of cream of tartar to soda commonly recommended. About 2 teaspoons of modern double-acting baking powder is the nearest substitute, but the original pair reacts faster, so cook the batter soon after mixing.
- Batter consistencyScalded meal thickens as it stands. Expect to loosen the batter with a little more milk before the last of it is cooked, or the final cakes will be stodgy.
- A tablespoonful per cakeThat gives silver-dollar cakes about two inches across. Two to three tablespoons per cake is more usual now; either way, keep them small, as cornmeal batter is fragile and hard to turn in a large round.
- Pan and fatA cast-iron griddle or heavy frying pan over medium heat, not "very hot" — the sugar in the batter browns quickly and the interior needs time to set. A teaspoon of butter per batch, wiped thin, is enough.
Cassell's phrasing — "the true American griddle cakes" — points the reader to its entry for American breakfast or griddle cakes. What marks it as American is the Indian meal: cornmeal scalded with hot liquid was the basis of a whole family of nineteenth-century North American batters, from Rhode Island jonnycakes to the cornmeal "flannel cakes" and "slapjacks" that are generally associated with the American cookbook writers of the period. The recipe pairs cream of tartar with carbonate of soda: commercial baking powder existed by the later nineteenth century, but careful cookbooks went on giving the two components separately so the cook could judge the proportions. British readers met American breakfast cooking largely through such notes.