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Butter Cakes
Mix 1 quart flour, 1 teaspoonful salt, 2 teaspoonfuls baking-powder. Rub in 3 tablespoonfuls butter. Mix to a soft dough with milk, roll out three-fourths of an inch thick, cut in round cakes. Lay on a moderately hot, greased griddle, and when pale brown turn and brown on other side. Tear open, butter liberally, and send to table.
A griddle-baked biscuit dough, cooked on the stovetop rather than in the oven. The whole trick is a griddle cool enough that the centre sets before the outside darkens.
- A quart of flourFlour was measured by volume: a quart is 4 cups, roughly 1 lb or 500 g. Spoon it into the cup and level it rather than scooping, or you will be a half-cup over.
- Leavening looks lightTwo teaspoons of baking powder for 4 cups of flour is well below the modern standard of about 1 teaspoon per cup. Period baking powders were single-acting and of variable strength; with today's double-acting powder, expect a dense, close crumb at this ratio.
- Griddle heat"Moderately hot" is not defined in the book; in practice it means a griddle cooler than you would use for pancakes, on the order of 325-350F on a heavy pan or flat-top. Cakes three-quarters of an inch thick will want something like 6 to 8 minutes a side; too hot a griddle gives a brown crust over raw dough.
- Test the centreBecause nothing browns evenly on a griddle, judge doneness by the sides: they should look dry and set rather than damp. A skewer through the middle should come out clean.
- Rubbing in the butterThree tablespoons for a quart of flour is a lean dough by biscuit standards. Work the cold butter to coarse crumbs and stop; over-rubbing until it disappears costs you what little flakiness the dough has.
- Soft doughMilk quantity is left to the cook, as was usual. Reckon on 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups for a dough that just holds together and is slightly tacky, handled as little as possible.
- Tear, do not sliceThe recipe says to tear them open. A torn surface is ragged and takes up the butter more readily than a knife-cut face.
- YieldAbout twelve to fourteen cakes cut with a 2 1/2-inch cutter. They are at their best within minutes of leaving the griddle and go leathery once cool.
Baking bread and cakes on a flat iron plate over the fire predates the domestic oven by centuries, and the practice survived longest in Scotland, Ireland and the north of England, where the girdle or bakestone produced scones, soda bread and oatcakes. Recipes of this kind travelled into American household manuals and stayed useful for a practical reason: a griddle needs only a small steady fire, so a cook could produce hot bread for supper without heating a range oven. Such things were commonly grouped with muffins and biscuit under the general heading of hot breads made quickly with chemical leavening rather than yeast.