Batter Cakes
Two eggs beaten separately. Pour into the yolks a pint of buttermilk, then put in two handfuls of meal and one of flour, then the whites of the eggs, half a teaspoonful of soda and a little salt. Fry with very little grease, or with egg shells. Put two spoonfuls of batter to a cake.--Mrs. C.L.T. Another Recipe for Batter Cakes. 1 quart of flour. 1 pint of meal. 1 teaspoonful of soda. 1 teaspoonful of salt. 3 eggs.
Make up with buttermilk.--Mrs. Dr. J.
Batter Cakes made of Stale Bread.
Put a loaf of stale bread to stand all day in a pint of milk. Just before tea add three eggs and one large spoonful of butter. If too thin, add a little flour.--Mrs. R.
Old Virginia Batter Cakes.
Beat two eggs very light in a bowl. Add one teacup of clabber, one of water, one of corn meal, a teacup of flour, one-half teaspoonful of salt. Just before baking, sift in half a teaspoonful of soda and stir well. It is better to grease the griddle with fat bacon than with lard.
The above proportions will make enough batter cakes for two or three persons.--Mrs. S.T.
Another Recipe for the Same. 1 quart sweet milk. 1 heaping pint corn meal. 4 eggs. 1 teaspoonful of salt. Half teaspoonful of soda. 1 tablespoonful of warmed butter or fresh lard. Break the eggs, whites and yolks together, beat slightly, then add the milk, stir in the meal and beat until it looks light. Bake on a griddle.--Mrs. J.P. Cheap Recipe for Batter Cakes. 1 pint of sour milk. 1 teaspoonful of soda. 1 tablespoonful of flour. Enough meal to make a good batter.
Bake on a hoe.--Miss E.P.
Six versions of the same griddle cake, all built on cornmeal, soured milk and soda. The variations are worth reading together: they show how much latitude the batter allows.
- "Meal" means cornmealIn Southern books of this period it is generally white and stone-ground rather than degerminated, though the recipes here do not specify. Modern fine or medium yellow cornmeal works; stone-ground white gives the closest texture.
- Clabber and sour milkClabber is raw milk left to thicken and sour naturally. Cultured buttermilk is the practical substitute in all these recipes, and plain kefir or thinned yogurt will also carry the soda.
- Soda needs the acidMrs. J.P.'s version uses sweet milk with half a teaspoon of soda and no acid, which will taste faintly soapy and rise poorly. Either use buttermilk there or substitute baking powder, about 2 teaspoons, for the soda.
- Handfuls and teacupsA handful is a rough measure, perhaps half a cup; a period teacup is smaller than a modern measuring cup, usually reckoned somewhere between four and six ounces. Adjust with liquid until the batter pours thickly from the spoon.
- The stale bread versionA loaf soaked in only a pint of milk will not fall apart on its own. Tear it up first, break the softened crumb down with a fork or a whisk, and expect a heavier, more custardy cake than the meal versions.
- Griddle heat and greaseMedium-high, roughly 375F on an electric griddle, and very little fat. Mrs. S.T. prefers fat bacon to lard for greasing the griddle. What Mrs. C.L.T. means by frying "with egg shells" is unclear; one reading is that a shell half served as a wiper for the grease.
- Sift the soda in lastMrs. S.T. is right to hold the soda back until just before baking. Once it hits the acid it starts working immediately, and a batter left standing after the soda goes in bakes flat.
- "Bake on a hoe"The name is usually explained as a flat iron blade held over coals, though that derivation is traditional rather than settled. A heavy cast-iron skillet or griddle is the direct equivalent.
- YieldOnly Mrs. S.T. gives a clue: her proportions serve two or three. The quart-of-flour recipe (Mrs. Dr. J.) is several times larger and would feed a table; Mrs. C.L.T. sizes her cakes at two spoonfuls of batter each.
Batter cakes were the ordinary breakfast bread of Virginia households, distinct from the wheat-flour pancake in that cornmeal does the work and the leavening comes from soda meeting soured milk rather than from yeast or eggs alone. That six contributors sent in versions tells you how basic the dish was: Housekeeping in Old Virginia, compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree and published in 1878, gathered recipes from named Virginia housekeepers, and the duplication across a single heading is a record of household practice rather than an editor's oversight. The details that vary are the ones that mattered in a kitchen without refrigeration or standardized baking powder: whether the milk was sweet or clabbered, how much soda to correct it, and whether the griddle was greased with bacon, lard, or nothing much at all. The stale-bread version belongs to the same thrift that produced bread puddings and panadas, and Miss E.P.'s hoecake, baked on a blade over the fire, points back to the oldest form of cornbread cookery in the region.