Name: Southern Hoe-cake
Ingredients: 1 pint boiling water; 1 teaspoon sugar; 1 teaspoon salt; cornmeal (enough to make a stiff batter)

Southern Hoe-cake

Ingredients

1 pint boiling water
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
cornmeal (enough to make a stiff batter)

Directions

Prepare the batter

Pour boiling water into a mixing bowl.
Add sugar and salt, then stir in enough cornmeal to form a stiff batter.

Shape and cook

Moisten your hands with cold water and shape the batter into thin flat cakes.
Cook on a griddle or place in a well-greased pan and bake.

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 body of the batter, giving the cakes their structure and corn flavour.
Boiling water: Hydrates the cornmeal and softens its starch so the batter can be shaped.
Sugar: Adds a little sweetness and helps the cakes brown during cooking.

“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.