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Flour Mixtures: Quick Breads: Griddle
CORN MEAL GRIDDLE CAKES 1/2 cup of corn meal 1 tablespoonful of sugar 2/3 cup of flour 1 egg, beaten light 2 1/2 level teaspoonfuls of bak- 1 cup of sweet milk ing powder 1 tablespoonful of melted but- 1/4 teaspoonful of salt ter At night scald the milk, pour it over the corn meal, mix, cover closely and let stand till morning. Add the other ingredients and bake as above. BREAD GRIDDLE CAKES Soak stale bread, from which the crust has been taken, in cold water. When the bread is soft, turn it into a piece of cheese cloth and wring out the water. Take: 1 cup of softened bread 1 1/2 level teaspoonfuls of bak- 1 egg, beaten light ing powder 2 level teaspoonfuls of sugar About 1/2 cup of milk 1/2 teaspoonful of salt Bake as previously directed 3/4 cup of pastry four GREEN OR CANNED CORN GRIDDLE CAKES 1 cup of corn pulp 1 tablespoonful of melted but- 1 egg, beaten light ter 1/2 teaspoonful of salt 1/2 cup of sifted flour 1/3 cup of sweet milk 1 level teaspoonful of baking powder These griddle cakes are good with creamed chicken, or with the remnants of stewed chicken (much sauce and little chicken). For use with chicken add one-fourth a teaspoonful of black pepper and a slice of green or red pepper, chopped fine.
PLAIN GRIDDLE CAKES 1 cup of sifted flour 1/2 teaspoonful of bicarbonate 1/4 teaspoonful of salt of soda 1/2 teaspoonful of baking pow- 1 cup of thick, sour milk der 1 or 2 tablespoonfuls of melted butter Sift together the flour, salt and baking powder, stir the soda into the sour milk and use to mix the dry ingredients to a batter; mix in the butter and bake as usual. This recipe will make about eight cakes. A cup of sweet milk and a level teaspoonful of baking powder may be substituted for the sour milk and soda.
Four griddle cake batters that share one set of instructions, given in full only in the recipes preceding these. Here is what "bake as above" meant and what the ingredient names translate to.
- "Bake" means griddle, not ovenThe batters are dropped by spoonfuls onto a greased, hot griddle or heavy skillet and turned once when the surface bubbles and the edges look set. The full directions sit in the earlier recipes, not on this page; by modern practice a griddle around 375F suits pancakes, with a drop of water skittering rather than vanishing instantly.
- The overnight soakScalded milk poured over cornmeal softens the grain so the cakes are tender rather than gritty. Left on a modern counter overnight the milk is a risk; refrigerate the covered bowl and bring it back to room temperature before you add the egg and leavening.
- Sweet milk and sour milk"Sweet milk" is simply fresh unsoured milk. "Thick, sour milk" in the plain cakes is clabbered raw milk, which today's pasteurised milk will not reliably become; use full-fat cultured buttermilk, which is what the soda is there to react with.
- Baking powder amountsTwo and a half teaspoons leavens 2/3 cup of flour together with 1/2 cup of cornmeal, still on the high side by current standards. Period baking powder was often a weaker single-acting cream of tartar type rather than modern double-acting powder; a teaspoon and a half is plenty, and more can leave a metallic edge.
- Pastry flourThe bread cakes call for pastry flour, a soft low-protein flour. Substitute all-purpose, or use all-purpose with two tablespoons per cup replaced by cornstarch if you want the softer crumb the original intended.
- Corn pulpFor the green corn cakes this means the milky pulp scraped from ears of fresh sweet corn after slitting the kernels, or drained canned cream-style corn. Whole canned kernels will not bind the thin batter the same way.
- Softened breadA cup of soaked, wrung-out bread is a measure of the damp mass, not of dry crumbs. Use a plain white loaf; sourdough or a heavily seeded bread will dominate. The half cup of milk is a guide only, since the bread's residual water varies.
- YieldThe plain recipe states about eight cakes; no yield is given for the other three. Eight cakes is two servings, or one hungry breakfast.
Griddle cakes were the everyday breakfast bread of American households long before the boxed pancake mix, and the recipes here show the form scaled down for a small household. The four variants here are a fair picture of turn-of-the-century thrift and regional taste: cornmeal, needing an overnight scald to soften; stale bread rescued from the crock rather than thrown out; and green corn, meaning fresh sweet corn at the milk stage, a summer dish. The note that corn cakes go well with "the remnants of stewed chicken (much sauce and little chicken)" is the honest voice of the period's economy cookery. The sour-milk version preserves an older chemistry: soda needs an acid, and before commercial baking powder was common a household's naturally clabbered milk supplied it.