Skip to main content
Dessert

Virginia Ash Cake

A simple cornmeal cake baked in ashes, sometimes wrapped in cabbage leaves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Virginia Ash Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Combine cornmeal and salt in a bowl.

  2. Add enough water to form a dough and knead well.

  3. Shape the dough into round, flat cakes.

Bake

  1. Place one cabbage leaf under and one over the cake before baking, and do not wash the leaves before use.

  2. Place the cakes on the hottest part of the hearth.

  3. Cover the cakes with hot wood ashes.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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 main body of the cake, setting into a firm, starchy crumb when baked.
Water
Hydrates the cornmeal so it binds into a kneadable dough.

The step that matters

Kneading the dough well. Kneading develops cohesion between the cornmeal and water so the flat cakes hold their shape rather than crumbling in the ashes.

“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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes