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Indian Griddle-Cakes
Sift and mix together two-thirds of a quart of corn meal, one-third of a quart of flour, one easpoonful brown sugar, two heaping teaspoonfuls baking powder, one-half teaspoonful of salt. Add two beaten eggs and one pint of milk, beating into a smooth batter. Brown nicely on a very hot griddle. Serve with syrup.
A plain cornmeal pancake measured by the quart rather than the cup. The conversions are simple, but the batter behaves differently from a wheat-only one and wants a moment's patience before it hits the pan.
- Quart measuresTwo-thirds of a quart of cornmeal is about 2 2/3 cups; one-third of a quart of flour is about 1 1/3 cups. One pint of milk is 2 cups.
- Let the batter standCornmeal keeps absorbing liquid for several minutes. Mix, then rest the batter 10 minutes before cooking so the grain softens and the cakes are not gritty; thin with a little more milk if it has gone stiff.
- "Indian" mealIndian meal is simply cornmeal. Use a fine or medium yellow meal, not coarse polenta grind, and not self-rising cornmeal, which would add a second dose of leavening and salt.
- "A very hot griddle"Around 375-400F on an electric griddle, or a heavy cast-iron pan over medium-high. A drop of water should skitter and vanish. Cornmeal browns faster than wheat, so watch the first cake and adjust down if it darkens before the centre sets.
- GreasingThe recipe says nothing about greasing, which suggests a griddle already seasoned and wiped with fat. A thin film of butter or neutral oil between batches is enough; a pool of it will fry the edges lacy and pale in the middle.
- Typo in the original"one easpoonful brown sugar" is one teaspoonful. At that quantity it is a trace rather than a sweetener.
- Baking powderTwo heaping teaspoons is roughly 3 level teaspoons for about four cups of dry mix, which is on the light side by modern standards, though the two eggs help. Cook soon after mixing, as the rest above will already have used some of the lift.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield; the batter comes to roughly six cups, enough for a generous number of three- or four-inch cakes and a table of four or more. Hold finished cakes in a single layer on a rack in a 200F oven rather than stacked, which steams them limp.
Cornmeal griddle-cakes belong to the long American habit of stretching or replacing wheat with maize, a practice inherited from Native cooking and carried through colonial hasty pudding, johnnycake and corn pone. Nineteenth-century cookbooks often call the grain "Indian meal," though "corn meal" — the term used in the recipe on this very page — was in ordinary printed use well before 1900. What the baking powder tells us is only that this version is later than the 1850s and 60s, when commercial baking powder came on sale: older receipts for the same cakes leaned on sour milk and saleratus, or on an overnight yeast batter, and a canned chemical leavening asks less of the cook than a yeast sponge. A bride's cook book may well have been aimed at brand-new housekeepers, and a bowl of meal, eggs, milk and baking powder would put breakfast on the table without the judgement a sponge demands.