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1 cake compressed yeast 1 cup lukewarm water 1¼ cups milk, scalded and cooled CAKES No. 3 4 level tablespoons brown sugar 4 tablespoons melted lard 1 teaspoon salt 2½ cups sifted flour Dissolve the yeast and sugar in the lukewarm liquid; add lard (or butter), flour gradually, and salt. Beat thoroughly; cover and set aside to rise for about one hour, in a warm place, free from draft. When light, stir well and bake on hot griddle.
If wanted for over night, use one fourth cake of yeast and an extra half teaspoon of salt. Cover and keep in a cool place. BUCKWHEAT CAKES No. 1 1 cake compressed yeast 2 cups lukewarm water 1 cup milk, scalded and cooled 2 level tablespoons brown sugar 2 cups buckwheat flour 1 cup sifted white flour 1½ teaspoons salt Dissolve the yeast and sugar in the lukewarm liquid; add buckwheat and white flour gradually, and salt. Beat until smooth; cover and set aside in a warm place, free from draft, to riseabout one hour. When light, stir well and bake on a hot griddle. If wanted for over night, use only one fourth cake of yeast and an extra half teaspoon of salt. Cover and keep in a cool place. BUCKWHEAT CAKES No. 2 1 pint buttermilk Buckwheat flour 1/4 cake yeast Pinch of salt 1 tablespoon molasses 1/2 teaspoon baking soda Into the buttermilk stir enough flour to make a soft batter; add the yeast cake dissolved in a little warm water and the salt and beat thoroughly. Let rise over night and in the morning stir in the molasses and baking soda. Save a cup of the batter to be used instead of yeast for the next baking. 1 cup flour
Three yeast-raised griddle cake batters, run together by the scanner: the first is a plain white griddle cake (headed "Cakes No. 3"), followed by two buckwheat versions. The stray "1 cup flour" at the end belongs to a neighbouring recipe and can be ignored.
- Compressed yeastA cake of compressed (fresh) yeast in this period was about 0.6 oz, equivalent to one packet of active dry or instant yeast, 2 1/4 teaspoons. The quarter-cake called for in the overnight versions is roughly 1/2 teaspoon of dry yeast.
- The overnight instruction is the useful oneCutting the yeast to a quarter and adding extra salt, then holding the batter in a cool place, is a deliberate slow ferment. That long rise is what gives these cakes their sour, tangy edge; the one-hour warm rise produces something much blander.
- Griddle heatThe recipe says only "hot griddle," with the surface just barely greased. A moderate griddle is likely safer than a fierce one here, since the sugar and the fermentation encourage faster browning than a plain baking-powder batter.
- LardMelted lard is entirely workable and gives a clean flavour; the recipe itself allows butter. Cool the melted fat slightly before adding it so it does not kill the yeast.
- Buckwheat flourBuckwheat is not a wheat and contributes no gluten, which is why No. 1 carries a cup of white flour alongside it; No. 2 uses buckwheat alone, leaning on the buttermilk batter instead. Buy it fresh and keep it cold, as its fat content turns rancid comparatively quickly and a stale bag will make the cakes taste bitter.
- Buckwheat No. 2 has no measured flour"Enough flour to make a soft batter" into a pint of buttermilk is about 2 to 2 1/2 cups, but work to the consistency rather than the number: it should pour thickly from a ladle, not mound.
- Molasses and soda go in lastIn No. 2 the soda neutralises the acid built up overnight and gives an immediate lift. Stir it in and cook straight away; leaving the batter to stand after the soda goes in wastes the gas.
- The saved cup of batterReserving a cup as the leaven for the next batch is a working sourdough starter. Keep it refrigerated in a covered jar and use it within a week, or refresh it with buttermilk and flour; discard it if it smells of acetone or shows any pink or fuzzy growth.
- YieldThe first batter gives roughly 18 to 20 four-inch cakes, enough for four to five people; buckwheat No. 1 is a larger batter and will give appreciably more.
Yeast-raised buckwheat cakes were a fixture of American winter breakfasts through the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth, and the buttermilk version here preserves the older carry-over method, a crock of batter kept in a cool place with a cupful held back each morning to raise the next day's, the same pot going all season (though this particular version does also call for baking soda). Buckwheat suited the northern farms that grew it because it matures fast on poor ground, and its flour was cheap; the molasses and brown sugar in these recipes are there partly for flavour and partly to feed the yeast. Compressed yeast sold in wrapped cakes had by this date made the process a good deal more reliable than the homemade hop or potato yeasts of earlier books, which is why a quarter cake can be specified with some expectation of a predictable overnight rise.