Home › Cavewoman Breads, Dumplin's and Mush › Ash Cake
Ash Cake
2 CUPS CORN MEAL I TEASPOON SALT I TABLESPOON SUGAR BOILING WATER Mix corn meal, salt and sugar together, then add enough boiling water to make a stiff dough. Let stand an hour or two. Mold between the hands into cakes an inch thick. Lay on hot hearth stones near the fire until the outside dries a little. Cover with hot ashes and bake at least half an hour, or until done and well browned. Shake off ashes and wipe with a cloth. Eat with plenty of butter, or split and make into sandwiches with fried salt pork or bacon. Hoe cake, corn dodgers, Johnnie cake and cracklin' bread are only subtle variations of ash cake.
A three-ingredient cornmeal dough baked in the coals. The whole thing turns on the resting period and the dryness of the crust before the ashes go on.
- The hinge: let it rest, then dry the surfaceThe hour or two of standing lets the meal fully absorb the water so the cakes hold together instead of crumbling in the coals. Drying the outside on hot stones first forms a skin that keeps ash from working into the crumb.
- Which cornmealStone-ground whole cornmeal, medium or coarse grind, behaves the way the original intends. Fine degerminated supermarket meal drinks less water and gives a pastier cake; add the boiling water gradually and stop at a dough that holds a thumbprint.
- Ashes must be clean wood ashOnly ash from untreated hardwood or fruitwood. Never bank these cakes in ash from charcoal briquettes, lighter fluid, painted or pressure-treated lumber, or scrap plywood.
- Reading the fireYou want a bed that has burned down to grey ash over live coals, not open flame. Rake ash aside, set the cakes on the hot hearth, then draw the ash back over them and leave the coals mostly beneath rather than heaped on top.
- Judging donenessHalf an hour is a floor, not a target; an inch-thick cake may well want longer. It is done when it sounds hollow tapped and reads about 200F at the centre.
- Cleaning themBrush and wipe while still hot, when the ash sits loose on the crust. A dry cloth or a stiff brush works better than a damp one, which turns the surface to paste.
- IndoorsThe same dough can be baked on a preheated stone or heavy skillet in a hot oven, around 425F, until browned through; watch it rather than trusting a clock. The crust is thinner and cleaner, and the smoky note is lost.
- YieldTwo cups of meal should give roughly six to eight cakes, depending on how much water the meal takes, enough for four people as bread alongside a meal.