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Nutmeg Cakes
The nutmeg cakes are prepared exactly the same as flannel cakes, but adding to the batter before the cakes are made two saltspoons grated nutmeg well mixed in.
A one-line variation that depends entirely on a recipe printed elsewhere in the book. The only new element is the spice, and the only real decisions are how much and when to add it.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, so two saltspoons is about 1/2 teaspoon of grated nutmeg. That is a light hand for a full batch of batter; a scant teaspoon is closer to what most modern palates read as nutmeg-flavoured.
- Flannel cakesThin, soft griddle cakes, the name usually explained as a reference to their soft, flannel-like texture. Many nineteenth-century versions are raised with yeast and set to rise overnight; others use baking powder and separated eggs. Whichever base recipe you follow, the recipe here puts the nutmeg in with the finished batter rather than into an overnight sponge.
- Grate it yourselfPre-ground nutmeg loses its volatile oils within months, and half a teaspoon of stale powder will read as dusty rather than warm. A whole nutmeg on a microplane takes seconds and is the difference between the cake tasting of spice and tasting of nothing.
- Mix in thoroughlyThe instruction to mix it well is not idle. Nutmeg is light and clings to itself; dropped into a slack batter it will streak, and a diner gets one bitter mouthful while the rest is plain.
- Griddle heatThe recipe says nothing about heat. Modern practice for griddle cakes is medium, around 375F, lightly greased.
- ServingButter and syrup or honey suit them; a squeeze of lemon and sugar suits them better, since the acid lifts the spice. Figure three or four cakes a person.
Nutmeg was the everyday luxury spice of the nineteenth-century American kitchen, cheap enough by then to sit in a small grater on the sideboard and turn up in custards, pies, eggnog, cream sauces and, as here, breakfast batters. Flannel cakes themselves are often said to have been a staple of hotel and boarding-house breakfast tables, and cookbooks of this period routinely printed a base batter followed by a string of one-line variations, on the assumption that a cook would have the parent recipe a page or two back. The pattern says something about how these books were used: not read straight through, but worked from by someone who already knew the basic method and wanted only the point of difference.