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Johnny-Cake

A cornmeal cake made with water and salt, baked over an open fire.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Johnny-Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Sift the Indian meal into a pan and make a hole in the middle.

  2. Pour in the warm water and add the salt.

  3. Mix the meal and water gradually into a soft dough with a spoon.

  4. Stir the dough briskly for about 15 minutes until it becomes light and spongy.

Bake and serve

  1. Spread the dough evenly on a flat board.

  2. Place the board nearly upright before an open fire, supporting it with an iron.

  3. Bake until done, then cut into squares and serve hot, split and buttered.

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

Indian meal
Forms the main body of the cake, giving it its structure and corn flavour.
Warm water
Hydrates the meal so it forms a soft, workable dough.

The step that matters

Stir the dough briskly for about 15 minutes. Vigorous stirring works air into the dough and develops the starch and protein, so the cake becomes light and spongy rather than dense when baked.

“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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