Wheat Cakes

A griddle-cake batter of the plainest church-supper sort: grated potato, egg, a little flour and milk, leavened with baking powder and enriched with bacon fat. The quantities are given without a method, so the handling is left to the cook.

• What the measures meanC is a cup, t is a teaspoon in this book's shorthand, and a "rounding" teaspoon is one filled above the level of the rim, so rather more than a level teaspoon of baking powder. The salt figure has lost its fraction and is most likely half a teaspoon.
• The potatoesTwo large potatoes means roughly a pound. Grated raw they give a dense, crisp-edged cake; cooked and mashed they give a soft, tender one. Nothing here settles which was meant, so choose by the texture you want and adjust the milk accordingly.
• Batter consistencyThe milk is deliberately vague — "about 1 C." Raw grated potato sheds a good deal of water, so add the milk last and stop when the batter pours thickly from the spoon rather than running.
• Baking powder timingMix the batter just before cooking. Cut potato discolours on standing, and a chemical leavener loses some of its lift if the batter is left to sit.
• Bacon greaseThe teaspoon of melted bacon fat is stirred in at the end, once everything else is combined, so it disperses rather than seizing on cold ingredients. It flavours the batter; the griddle still needs its own greasing.
• Griddle heatThe recipe says nothing about heat or timing. A medium griddle suits it — hot enough to set the edges but not so hot that the outside colours before the potato inside is cooked through; raw grated potato will want longer than a plain wheat cake.
• YieldTwelve medium cakes, which is three or four servings at breakfast.