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White Bread Cakes
1 pound of bread crumbs. 12 ounces of flour. 3 pints of water or milk. 4 eggs. Salt. 2 teaspoonfuls of baking powder.
Remove all the dark crust from the bread, and then soak it in a quart of the water several hours, with a plate to press it under. Mash smooth and add the flour, the pint of milk or water, eggs and powder. It always improves batter cakes to beat the eggs light, before mixing them in. No shortening nor syrup needed for the above.
A batter griddle cake built on stale bread rather than on flour alone, from the era when a pastry cook wasted nothing. The instructions are terse but internally consistent once you track the liquid.
- The liquid, split in twoThe 3 pints (6 cups) are used in two stages: a quart (4 cups) to soak the bread, then a further pint (2 cups) stirred in with the flour and eggs. Add the second pint gradually — how much the bread absorbed depends on how dry it was.
- What "bread crumbs" means hereNot dry packaged crumbs but torn-up stale crumb from a white loaf, about a pound, roughly the crumb of a large loaf with the crusts cut away. Dry commercial crumbs behave differently in the soak and are likely to give a pasty batter.
- The soak is the hingeSeveral hours under a weighted plate is what lets the bread break down to a smooth mash. Rushed, it leaves lumps that never disperse and the cakes cook unevenly. Refrigerate if soaking overnight in milk.
- Beat the eggs firstThe recipe says this improves batter cakes and it is right: the four beaten eggs are the only real lift beyond the baking powder, since there is no shortening and no sugar.
- Baking powderTwo teaspoons for 12 ounces of flour plus a pound of bread is modest. Early baking powders varied in strength and reliability; a modern powder should work at the stated amount, but mix it in last and cook the batter promptly.
- Flour by weight12 ounces of flour is about 2 3/4 cups measured by scoop-and-level. Weigh it if you can — the batter's consistency depends more on this than on anything else.
- CookingThese are batter cakes, cooked on a griddle. A greased griddle or skillet at medium heat, ladled thin; the recipe gives no temperature, so watch the first one and adjust.
- Yield and servingA large batch, enough for roughly eight to ten people as a breakfast dish. With no sugar or fat in the batter, butter, syrup or molasses at the table would suit, though the recipe does not say so.
Bread cakes belong to the long tradition of second-day cookery, in which yesterday's loaf was turned back into something usable. American cookbooks of the later nineteenth century are full of these conversions — bread puddings, panadas, brown betties, bread griddle cakes — because white bread went stale quickly and was too valuable in flour to throw away. The closing line, "No shortening nor syrup needed for the above," makes the point that the bread supplies enough body and the eggs enough richness that the more expensive additions can be skipped. Chemical leavening is what makes the dish quick enough for a morning meal.