Name: An Excellent and Cheap Dessert Dish
Ingredients: a pint of small homony very clean; a piece of butter

An Excellent and Cheap Dessert Dish

A dessert made from boiled hominy mixed with corn meal, eggs, milk, and butter, baked on a griddle and served with butter and molasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription

An Excellent and Cheap Dessert Dish

Ingredients

a pint of small homony very clean
a piece of butter

Directions

Prepare the batter

Wash a pint of small hominy very clean.
Boil it tender.
Add an equal quantity of corn meal.
Make it into a batter with eggs, milk, and a piece of butter.

Cook and serve

Bake it like batter cakes on a griddle.
Eat it with butter and molasses.

By Mary Randolph. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures. See the original page.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Hominy (in the method): Boiled until tender, it forms the bulk and body of the batter.
Corn meal (in the method): Added in equal quantity to the hominy, it thickens the batter and gives the cakes structure.
Eggs (in the method): Bind the batter together and help the cakes hold their shape on the griddle.
Milk (in the method): Loosens the batter to a pourable consistency and adds moisture to the cakes.
Butter: Adds richness and flavour to the batter and helps the cakes brown on the griddle.