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Dessert

Indian Pone

A batter of water, Indian meal, butter, and salt is baked into small cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Indian Pone

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Bring 1 quart of water to a boil in a pot.

  2. Stir in enough Indian meal to make a very thin batter, beating frequently for 10 minutes.

  3. Remove from heat.

  4. Pour into a pan.

  5. Add 1 ounce of butter and salt to taste.

  6. When the batter is lukewarm, stir in enough Indian meal to make it thick.

Rise and shape

  1. Set aside to rise overnight.

  2. In the morning, shape into small cakes.

Bake

  1. Butter your tins.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

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 batter and bulk of the cakes, giving them their body and structure as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps keep the baked cakes moist and tender.

The step that matters

Stirring in the second portion of meal at lukewarm temperature. If the batter is too hot, the meal can cook unevenly or thin out, while a cooled batter thickens to a shapeable dough. Adding meal only once it is lukewarm lets the starch thicken it properly for shaping after the overnight rise.

“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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