Corn Cake
With one quart of corn meal, scalded, mix one-half quart of milk and one-half quart of water, small quantities of soda, salt and brown sugar.
A large, plain corn cake built on an old technique — scalding the meal before the batter comes together.
- “One quart of corn meal”That’s about 4 cups; this makes a big batch, easily halved.
- “Half a quart” eachA half quart is 2 cups — so 2 cups milk and 2 cups water.
- Scald the meal firstPour the boiling liquid over the cornmeal and let it swell; this softens the grains for a moister, more tender cake.
- “Small quantities” decodedStart with about 1 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp salt, and 1–2 Tbsp brown sugar; the soda needs acidity, so using buttermilk in place of the milk helps it work.
- Bake hotPour into a greased pan and bake at around 425°F until set and browned.
The instruction to scald the meal looks fussy to modern eyes, but it solved a real problem. Older, stone-ground cornmeal was coarse and gritty, and pouring boiling water or milk over it let the hard grains swell and soften — partly gelatinizing the starch — before baking, for a far more tender crumb. It is the same principle behind cornmeal mush and Italian polenta. Cooks used the trick constantly in the days before fine, uniform commercial milling made it less necessary, and scalded corn breads keep their moisture and stay soft longer, too.
From page 54 of the 1904 edition.
Original page from the book
