Maryland Cakes (Beaten Biscuit)

Ingredients

• a teaspoonful of salt
• a quart of flour
• a large teaspoonful of butter or lard
• half a pint each of milk and water

Method

1. 1

   Mix salt with flour, rub in butter, gradually add milk and water to form a stiff dough.

2. 2

   Knead for five minutes, then beat with a rolling pin for half an hour.

3. 3

   Form into small cakes, prick with a fork, and bake for twenty minutes in a quick oven.

Nutrition per serving

As published

This recipe was extracted from Bread, cakes, and biscuits (1902) by S. Beaty-Pownall, page 39. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

a teaspoonful of salt and enough flour to make a thin batter, lastly add the stiffly whisked egg whites and two teaspoonfuls of baking powder, and bake quickly on a hot girdle. Hot Hoe Cakes. — Mix together half a teaspoonful of salt and a pint of cornmeal, then pour on this just enough boiling water to moisten it, and let it stand for ten minutes ; now add more boiling water, enough to make a batter that will drop (not pour) nicely from a spoon. Bake on a hot girdle or a “ hoe.” Serve hot with a piece of butter on each. Old Southern coloured cooks made the cakes on their “ hoes ” at a wooden fire, whence their name. Johnny Cakes. — Beat together three whole eggs till light, then add to them a pint of buttermilk, and lastly mix in a pint of Indian cornmeal, beating it well ; dissolve a tea- spoonful of bicarbonate of soda in two tablespoonfuls of boiling water, and add this, with a teaspoonful of salt and two tablespoonfuls of liquified butter, to the cornmeal batter ; mix thoroughly, and pour it into a well buttered shallow baking tin (such as is used for Yorkshire pudding). Bake for thirty minutes in a fairly quick oven. In America a coarse hand-ground meal is used for this cake, but any coarsely ground corn meal will do. Mix together one pint of meal and a teaspoonful of salt, and make it to a stiff, smooth batter with boiling water. Now pour on sufficient cold milk to bring it to the consistency of sponge cake batter, and drop it in spoonfuls on a hot buttered girdle. When the underside is nicely coloured, turn the cakes and brown the other side. Serve hot and buttered. Maryland Cakes (also known as “Beaten Biscuit”). — Mix a teaspoonful of salt with a quart of flour, then rub 62 BREAD, CAKES, AND BISCUITS. into it with your hands a large teaspoonful of butter or lard ; have ready mixed in a jug half a pint each of milk and water

Cook this with the app: pantry check, scaling, and the assistant.