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Rice Griddle Cakes
2 cupfuls cold boiled rice, 1 pint flour, 1 teaspoonful sugar, 1/2 teaspoonful salt, 1 1/2 teaspoonfuls baking-powder, 1 egg, little more than 1/2 pint milk. Sift together flour, sugar, salt, and powder; add rice free from lumps, diluted with beaten egg and milk; mix into smooth batter. Have griddle well heated; bake nice brown, not too thick; serve with maple syrup.
A leftover-rice pancake of the sort that appears in nearly every American cookbook of the period. The batter is thick and the cakes need a moderate griddle rather than a hot one.
- The hinge: break up the riceClumps of cold rice will not disperse once the flour is in, and each lump stays gummy in the finished cake. Rub the rice between your fingers into loose grains, then slacken it with the beaten egg and milk before it meets the dry mixture.
- Pint of flourFlour was measured by volume here: 1 pint is 2 cups, on the order of 8-9 oz or 225-250 g. "A little more than 1/2 pint" of milk is a little over 1 cup, and the batter should pour thickly rather than run.
- Baking powder1 1/2 teaspoons for 2 cups of flour is on the low side by current practice. If your cakes come out dense, 2 teaspoons is within reason for this quantity.
- Griddle heat"Well heated" here is not the fiercest heat used for thin batters; a heavy rice batter needs the centre to set before the outside colours. A drop of water should skitter, not vanish instantly.
- Not too thickThe instruction is deliberate. Spread each spoonful out thinly rather than mounding it, or the interior stays wet while the outside browns.
- The rice itselfPlain boiled long- or medium-grain rice, cooked without salt or fat and thoroughly cold, works best. Freshly cooked warm rice releases too much moisture and thins the batter.
- YieldEnough for about four people at breakfast. They hold in a barely warm oven better than most pancakes, since the rice keeps them moist.
Rice griddle cakes belong to the large family of nineteenth-century breakfast breads built on leftovers: cold rice, cold hominy, stale bread crumbs and cooked oatmeal all went into batters rather than the bin. Rice cookery of this kind is especially associated with the Carolina low country, where rice was the staple grain, though leftover-batter cakes were common across the country and this recipe sits unremarked among the wheat, buckwheat and cornmeal cakes. The maple syrup in the last line points north; cane syrup or molasses would have been the likelier accompaniment in a rice-growing region.