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Canned Corn Griddle Cakes
Prepare and serve the same as Bread Griddle Cakes. 1 cup flour 1 cup canned corn 1/2 cup milk 1 egg 1 level teaspoon Calumet Baking Powder 1/3 teaspoon salt 1 cup flour 2 teaspoons sugar 1 cup corn flakes 2 teaspoons butter 1 cup milk 1/2 teaspoon salt
A one-line recipe that leans entirely on a cross-reference, printed here with what appears to be a second ingredient list run in alongside it. Sort that out first and the rest is straightforward.
- Two lists, one recipeThe block gives two sets of quantities. The first six lines — 1 cup flour, 1 cup canned corn, 1/2 cup milk, 1 egg, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1/3 teaspoon salt — look like the corn cakes. The remaining lines (with corn flakes, sugar and butter) appear to belong to a neighbouring griddle cake recipe set into the same column; ignore them unless you are making that one.
- The missing instructions"Prepare and serve the same as Bread Griddle Cakes" points to a recipe not printed here, so the method has to be inferred: sift the dry ingredients together, beat the egg with the milk, combine quickly, fold in the corn last, and bake at once on a hot griddle. Batters raised with baking powder should go onto the griddle within a few minutes of mixing.
- Canned cornWhole-kernel corn, drained well, suits the recipe — a 15-oz can yields roughly a cup and a half of kernels, so about two-thirds of a can. Wet corn will slacken the batter noticeably; drain it in a sieve and blot it if it is very juicy. If you use cream-style corn instead, the milk will need reducing.
- Calumet Baking PowderCalumet was an alum-and-phosphate powder of the double-acting type. Modern double-acting powder behaves much the same; if yours is single-acting, expect the batter to lose lift if it stands.
- Batter consistencyOne cup of flour to half a cup of milk plus an egg gives a thick, spoonable batter rather than a pouring one. That is correct for a cake carrying whole kernels, but add milk a spoonful at a time if it will not spread on the griddle.
- Griddle heatAbout 375F, or hot enough that a drop of water skitters. Corn kernels sitting at the surface scorch faster than the batter around them, so keep the heat moderate and turn once, when the top is set and bubbling.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield; the quantities make a modest batch of small cakes, enough for two or three people. Serve with butter and syrup, or alongside a savoury dish; the sugar-free batter takes either.
Reliable Recipes was a promotional cookbook issued by the Calumet Baking Powder Company of Chicago, which is why the leavening is named by brand in a recipe that names nothing else by brand. Calumet, generally said to have been founded in the late 1880s, built its business on baking powder sold cheaply to home bakers, and its booklets were given away by grocers. The recipe itself belongs to a long American family of griddle cakes stretched with whatever was in the pantry — bread crumbs, rice, hominy, breakfast cereal, canned vegetables. Canned corn was among the earliest commercially canned foods to become genuinely cheap in the United States, and by the 1900s a can on the shelf was ordinary enough that a cookbook could treat it as a baking ingredient rather than a vegetable course.