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Wheat Cakes
This is the best plain hot griddle cake without eggs. The cakes will be light, tender, and healthful. 1 quart flour, 3 teaspoonfuls baking-powder, 1/2 teaspoonful salt. Sift well together and add sweet milk to make into a soft batter. Bake immediately on hot griddle. Should be full one-eighth of an inch thick when baked. Smother with butter and maple syrup or honey.
A bare-bones baking-powder batter with no egg and no fat, which makes the mixing time and the griddle heat the only things standing between you and a tough cake. The proportions are given by volume in a period measure, so start here.
- A quart of flourFour cups, spooned and levelled, or roughly 1 lb 2 oz of modern all-purpose flour. The recipe sifts flour, baking powder and salt together, which is worth doing since there is nothing else to distribute the leavening.
- How much milkNone is specified. Begin with about 3 cups of whole milk and adjust: the batter should pour thickly from the ladle and spread on its own, since the finished cake is meant to be only an eighth of an inch thick. "Sweet milk" simply means fresh milk, as opposed to the soured or buttermilk used in soda batters.
- The leavening is lightThree teaspoons of baking powder for four cups of flour is somewhat less than most modern pancake recipes call for. If your cakes come out flat and close-grained, try 5 or 6 teaspoons; period powders and the softer flours of the day did not necessarily behave like what is on the shelf now.
- Bake immediatelyThis is the hinge. Baking powder in a thin milk batter starts releasing gas as soon as it is wet, so a batter left standing will have given up some of its lift. Have the griddle hot before the milk goes in.
- Griddle heatMedium-high, about 375F on an electric griddle, or hot enough that a drop of water skitters. A cake this thin cooks fast - watch it rather than the clock, and turn as soon as the surface is set.
- No egg, no fatWithout either, these cakes are more tender than rich and they dry and toughen quickly. They also stick more readily, so grease the griddle lightly even if it is well seasoned. Eat them as they come off rather than holding a stack in a warm oven.
- YieldUpwards of two dozen four-inch cakes, depending on how thinly you pour them.