Johnnie Cake
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the dough
Sift one quart of Indian meal into a pan.
Make a hole in the middle and pour in a pint of warm water, adding one teaspoonful of salt.
With a spoon, mix the meal and water gradually into a soft dough.
Stir the dough very briskly for a quarter of an hour or more, until it becomes light and spongy.
Bake and serve
Spread the dough smoothly and evenly on a straight, flat board (a piece of the head of a flour-barrel will serve for this purpose).
Place the board nearly upright before an open fire and put an iron against the back to support it.
Bake the dough well.
When done, cut it into squares.
Serve hot at the table, split and buttered.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Indian meal
- Forms the bulk of the dough and gives the cake its body and corn flavour.
- Warm water
- Hydrates the meal so it forms a soft, workable dough.
The step that matters
Stir the dough briskly until light and spongy. Vigorous beating traps air into the wet dough, which gives the cake its light, spongy texture. Stirring too little leaves it dense.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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