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Fried Drop Cakes
1⅓ cups flour 2½ teaspoons baking powder ¼ teaspoon salt 1/3 cup sugar 1/2 cup milk 1 egg 1 teaspoon melted butter Beat egg until light; add milk, dry ingredients mixed and sifted, and melted butter. Drop by spoonfuls in hot, new, deep fat; fry until light brown and cooked through, which must at first be determined by piercing with a skewer, or breaking apart. Remove with a skimmer, and drain on brown paper.
A plain drop doughnut batter — no rolling, no cutting, just spoonfuls of soft dough into deep fat. The whole recipe turns on fat temperature, since the batter is loose enough to cook through unevenly if the fat is too hot.
- Fat temperatureFannie Farmer's era judged fat by dropping in a cube of bread; use a thermometer and hold 365–370F. Below that the cakes soak grease, above it the outside browns before the crumb sets, which is exactly the failure the skewer test in the recipe is guarding against.
- "New" fatThe instruction means fresh, previously unused fat rather than the drippings pot. Old fat has a lowered smoke point and carries the flavour of whatever was fried in it last. Neutral vegetable oil, shortening or lard all work; do not mix in bacon fat.
- QuantitiesRead the list as roughly 1 1/3 cups flour, 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder and 1/4 teaspoon salt against 1/3 cup sugar, 1/2 cup milk, 1 egg and 1 teaspoon melted butter. That gives a thick, spoonable batter that just holds its shape on the spoon; if it runs, add flour a tablespoon at a time.
- Baking powderBaking powders of this period were generally single-acting, so batters were mixed and cooked promptly. Modern double-acting powder is more forgiving, but the batter is still best fried soon after mixing.
- MixingCombine only until the flour disappears. The beaten egg contributes to the lift alongside the baking powder, and overworking the batter produces tough, close-grained cakes.
- Size and timingA rounded tablespoon gives a cake that cooks through in about 3 minutes, turning once. Fry no more than five or six at a time so the fat does not drop below temperature.
- DrainingBrown paper was the kitchen standard; a wire rack over a tray beats paper towel, which traps steam and softens the crust. Roll in cinnamon sugar while still warm if wanted.
- YieldRoughly 18 to 20 small cakes, depending on the size of the spoonful. They are best eaten warm and do not keep well.
Drop cakes are the lazy cousin of the cut doughnut: the same chemically leavened sweet dough, but slack enough to spoon straight into the fat rather than roll, cut and lift. They belong to the period when baking powder had made yeast-raised doughnuts optional for the home cook, fried food at breakfast being unremarkable in an American household of the period. The insistence on new fat and on testing with a skewer gives the cook a physical test she can repeat without an instrument to read the fat.