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Honey Cakes
Quarter pound sifted flour, two raw eggs, one tablespoon honey, half ounce powdered sugar, quarter ounce baking powder, one saltspoon salt, half saltspoon grated nutmeg and half pint of cold milk.
Place the flour in a bowl, crack in the eggs, add the sugar, honey, salt, nutmeg, baking powder and milk. Mix with a whisk until thoroughly thickened. Lightly grease the bottom of a large frying pan with a little melted lard and, as soon as the bottom of the pan is thoroughly hot, with a two-and-a-half-inch ladle immediately pour in the preparation, making four at a time, and cook for one and a half minutes on each side. Dress on a hot dish, cover with a napkin, then proceed exactly the same till the preparation is finished, and serve with maple syrup separately.
A thin, honey-sweetened pancake batter cooked in a skillet — the "cakes" are griddle cakes, not baked cookies. The weights translate cleanly, but two of them need adjusting for modern ingredients.
- Weights and volumesA quarter pound of sifted flour is about 115 g, roughly a cup to a cup and a quarter once sifted. Half a pint here is most likely the American cup measure (240 ml) of milk; half an ounce of powdered sugar is about 2 tablespoons.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. So a scant 1/4 tsp salt and 1/8 tsp grated nutmeg — nutmeg here is a background note, not a flavour you should taste outright.
- Batter consistencyOne cup of flour to one cup of milk plus two eggs gives a fairly thin batter, looser than a stack of thick hotcakes. The recipe says only to whisk until thickened; whisk until smooth and no further.
- The panA two-and-a-half-inch ladle means small cakes, four to a large skillet. Medium heat, not high: at a minute and a half a side, a screaming-hot pan will scorch the honey and sugar before the centre sets.
- FatThe recipe calls for a little melted lard, but butter or a neutral oil works. Wipe the pan with a thin film between batches rather than adding more each time.
- Holding and yield"Dress on a hot dish, cover with a napkin" keeps the cakes warm and pliable; a low oven with a cloth over the plate does the same. Expect somewhere around a dozen small cakes, serving three or four.
The name is confusing to modern eyes: across much of Europe a "honey cake" is a spiced, baked loaf or biscuit -- Lebkuchen, pain d'épices, medovik -- whereas this is honey used as the sweetener in a pan-cooked batter. The maple syrup served separately points to an American table. Covering the finished cakes with a napkin to hold them warm was a common kitchen practice before warming drawers, and it still works.