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Griddlecakes
2 CUPS SIFTED FLOUR, OR 17/8 CUPS, UN- SIFTED (ABOUT) 3 TEASPOONS BAKING POWDER I TEASPOON SALT I-2 EGGS, BEATEN 11/4-1/2 CUPS MILK 2 TABLESPOONS FAT OR BUTTER, MELTED Sift or thoroughly mix dry ingredients. Mix liquid ingredients and slowly stir into dry mixture. Beat until all lumps disappear. Makes 6-7 pancakes 7 inches in diameter, which is convenient frying pan size, or 14-16 pancakes 4 inches in diameter.
If this batter is right, it will pour easily and spread by itself to make pancakes about 1/4 inch thick. If they spread thinner on a justright griddle, then add more flour. If they are thick and bready, add more liquid. If they don't rise properly though you've done everything correctly, perhaps your baking powder has lost some of its oomph, and you had better add another teaspoonful or two. (If the batch is already made up before you discover this, the additional baking powder can be beaten in successfully if mixed with a tablespoon of flour.) To make sure your frying surface is absolutely smooth and clean, grease a cloth or wad of paper and rub surface of frying utensil hard, until it is well polished. Wipe clean, and then apply fat. Do not use any more fat for frying than is necessary to keep cakes from sticking. A frying pan that is used for other cooking will need more fat than a griddle or metal plate reserved exclusively for pancakes. Absolutely the best camp trick is to rub a piece of bacon rind over the surface after it is already heated.
As to changing the recipe:
You may add 1-4 tablespoons sugar, if you like, but the more sugar the more easily the cakes will burn.
A camp pancake batter written as a working formula rather than a fixed recipe, with the author expecting you to adjust it by watching how it spreads. The quantities are ordinary; the technique notes are where the value is.
- The fractionsThe flour reads as 2 cups sifted or about 1 7/8 cups unsifted, and the milk as 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups. Start at the lower milk figure and thin from there.
- The hingeJudge the batter by the finished cake, not the bowl. A correct batter pours easily and settles to about 1/4 inch; thinner than that means more flour, thick and bready means more liquid.
- Griddle heatNo temperature is given. On a modern range, medium heat, or about 375F on an electric griddle, suits a cake of this thickness; turn once when the surface bubbles have opened and stay open.
- Baking powderThree teaspoons to two cups of flour is a little more than most modern recipes use; 2 to 2 1/2 teaspoons of fresh double-acting powder is enough. The recipe's own remedy assumes powder may have gone flat, and an old tin can be tested by dropping a spoonful in hot water and watching for a vigorous fizz.
- Beating out the lumpsWith modern all-purpose flour, stir only until the dry streaks vanish and leave small lumps alone, or the cakes toughen.
- FatThe recipe calls for two tablespoons of melted fat or butter in the batter; butter, oil or shortening all work. Sticking is dealt with separately, by polishing and greasing the frying surface.
- Polishing the panThe scouring with greased cloth or paper matters on cast iron or a bare steel plate, where a rough or carbonised surface tears the first cake. On a nonstick or well-seasoned modern pan it is unnecessary; a thin wipe of fat is enough.
- SugarThe warning is accurate. Anything past a tablespoon or two browns fast, so drop the heat a notch if you sweeten the batter.
- YieldSix or seven 7-inch cakes, or fourteen to sixteen at 4 inches: two generous servings, three modest ones.
Baking-powder griddlecakes follow on from the saleratus and sour-milk cakes of the nineteenth century, and chemical leavening in tins made such batters easier for travellers to carry. What marks this as a camp recipe rather than a kitchen one is everything around the batter: the assumption that your frying surface is whatever you brought, that your baking powder may have gone flat, and that a piece of bacon rind is a dependable greasing tool. Giving a batter as a ratio to be corrected by eye rather than a fixed set of numbers suits outdoor cooking, where flour absorbs differently, measures are approximate and the cook cannot run out for more milk.