Friday, February 22, 2013

Spider Corn Cakes

Maybe I should have waited until Halloween to attempt this slightly creepy sounding recipe but I love corn bread and as does the husband. A spider according to Wikipedia  is “a commonly used cast iron cooking pan … [with] a handle and three legs used to stand up in the coals and ashes of the fire”.  

Spider Corn Cakes
The American Woman’s Cookbook

Beat two eggs, and one-half cup of sugar, two cups of sweet milk, and one of sour, three tablespoonfuls of melted butter, and one and one-third cupfuls of cornmeal, one third cupful of flour and one teaspoonful of soda; mix all ingredients together, heat spider hot, greasing well, pour in the mixture, and bake in a hot over from twenty-five to thirty minutes.
There is nothing out of the ordinary when it comes to the ingredients, but once I started prepping everything I noticed that the dry to liquid ratio was a lot different than a usual cornbread recipe. From scratch or using a box of Jiffy to make cornbread, you usually end up with a very thick batter, but for these corn cakes the batter is much more liquid-y, similar to a pancake batter. I lucked out and my cast iron frying pan was the exact right size for the amount. The cooking time is spot on, and due to the consistency of the batter it needs the high heat and time in the oven to solidify.


This was a big hit with the husband, and we've got tons of leftovers, yay!
 

Here is the recipe with a few minor modifications:

Spider Corn Cakes
Adapted from The American Woman’s Cookbook

2 eggs
½ cup sugar
2 cups milk
1 cup buttermilk
3 tbsp melted butter, plus extra for greasing the baking dish
1 ⅓ cups cornmeal
⅓ cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 450 and place your baking dish in the oven.* Wait until your oven is done preheating before you start the batter. In a large bowl whisk together the flour, cornmeal, baking soda and salt. In a second bowl beat the eggs and sugar together, then whisk in the milk, buttermilk and melted butter. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and gently mix until incorporated. Remove your hot baking dish from the oven and swirl/ brush with butter. Pour in batter and replace in the over. Bake for 25 minutes or until set and starting to brown at the edges a bit.

*I used my 12 inch cast iron frying pan, but any oven safe baking pan could be used or even a muffin tin. Just make sure whatever you use has a good amount of butter to keep the cake from sticking.

1 comment:

  1. This is such a cool idea for a blog - love it! That corn bread looks so good. I like that it contains both milk and buttermilk, and it's such a gorgeous golden color. Definitely gonna make this the next time I need a cornbread fix. The old-timey writing of the recipe is fantastic! Nice work! :)

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