Easy Hoe Cakes Recipe (Johnny Cakes) (2024)

FAQs

Are hoe cakes and johnny cakes the same? ›

Kate Itrich-Williams is a food writer, editor, and recipe developer who wrote the "Cook the Book" column for Serious Eats. Hoecakes—also known as corn pone, johnny cakes, or cornmeal pancakes—are a fairly common sight at brunch tables in the South, but are perhaps less known above the Mason-Dixon line.

A Johnny cake recipe makes a thinner batter that is fried into rounds, essentially making cornmeal pancakes. Cornbread is made with baking soda or baking powder to give it a bread-like lift and texture and is oven-baked in a baking dish and cut into squares for serving.

Johnny cake, also known as hoe cake, is essentially a cornmeal flatbread. Some say the name hoe cake is a reference to cooking the cakes on the blades of a garden hoe; others believe it's because the griddle used to cook the cakes was called a “hoe.”

A hoecake is a rustic fried version of a pancake made with ground cornmeal. When cooked well, it is crisp golden on the edges, dense on the inside, and sturdy enough to stand its own with honey and butter, or paired with Southern dishes, such as braised collard.

An Elvis Presley cake is a single-layer classic yellow cake that's topped with a pineapple glaze. Much like a poke cake, the syrup and juices of the pineapple will seep into the cake through fork holes, resulting in a decadent, ultra-moist cake.

Think of ho cakes more like traditional pancakes, but made with cornmeal. I like to use white cornmeal for Ho cakes. versus yellow cornmeal for hot water cornbread. The ingredients for Ho cakes mirror what.

A molasses cornbread topped with agave. PASTRIES - Cakes.

These thin, fried cakes are made with cornmeal, and their history goes back to the early Native Americans. While the origin of the name remains uncertain, many historians believe they were called 'Shawnee cakes' by the Pawtuxet Indians, and English settlers mispronounced it as 'jonnycakes. '

Although the ingredients may be simple, one ingredient plays a huge role in this recipe. If you have the wrong measurements for the baking powder then everything will go wrong. I remember my johnny cakes coming out hard as a rock because I added too much baking powder.

I grew up eating johnny cakes, vastly preferring them to the overly sweet, cakey buttermilk pancakes found in diners in the Midwest. My mom would make johnny cakes from scratch and they always felt like a special occasion. They were everything that pancakes were not—crispy, salty, hearty.

What is a Johnny cake slang? ›

cornbread usually cooked pancake-style on a griddle (chiefly New England) synonyms: johnnycake, journey cake. types: hoecake.

This cake originates with the Shawnees, who would cook a corn patty on a hot stone, that they would then take with them on day-long expeditions. Upon meeting them, European settlers noticed that this snack could keep for several days and was easily enough to feed a man on long journeys.

The name hoe cakes seems to be more straightforward. The term hoe is an old term for a griddle, so substituting one word for another, you get griddle cakes, and a perfect description for just what they are.

Family members and visitors alike testified that hoecakes were among George Washington's favorite foods. He invariably ate them at breakfast, covered with butter and honey, along with hot tea—a “temperate repast” enjoyed each morning.

The word is likely based on the word Jonakin, recorded in New England in 1765, itself derived from the word jannock, recorded in Northern England in the sixteenth century. According to Edward Ellis Morris, the term was the name given "... by the Americans to a cake made of Indian corn (maize)."

Jonny Manganello (@thejonnycakes) • Instagram photos and videos.

battercake flapcake griddlecake hotcake. Weak match. flannel cake. johnnycake (noun as in pancake)

Festival (always in the singular) are defined by their long oval shape and crisp golden crust, while Johnny cakes are round and do not have the sweetness and crumbly texture of a festival.