Hoe Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the batter
In a bowl, combine cornmeal and salt.
Pour in enough boiling water to moisten the meal.
Let it stand for 10 minutes.
Add cold water until the mixture can drop from a spoon.
Cook and serve
Bake on a hot griddle or hoe like griddle cakes.
Top each cake with a bit of butter before serving.
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.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Cornmeal
- Forms the body of the cakes and gives them their grainy texture.
- Boiling water
- Swells and softens the cornmeal so the batter holds together.
The step that matters
Add cold water until the mixture can drop from a spoon. Boiling water starches the meal, so adding cold water afterward cools the batter and sets its consistency. Too little water leaves a stiff batter that cracks, and too much makes thin cakes that spread and won't hold their shape on the griddle.
“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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