Recipes for batter cakes have often been associated with Thomas Jefferson, and especially with his kitchen staff in Washington. Although no such recipe exists in his hand, there is a recipe for batter cakes in Mary Randolph's book The Virginia Housewife. Randolph was a relative of Jefferson's, and recipes were known to pass back and forth between Mary Randolph and Jefferson's daughters and granddaughters. Jefferson is also believed to have owned a copy of Mary Randolph's cookbook.

Mary Randolph's recipe for batter cakes is as follows:

BOIL two cups of small homony very soft; add an equal quantity of corn meal with a little salt, and a large spoonful of butter; make it in a thin batter with three eggs, and a sufficient quantity of milk--beat all together some time, and bake them on a griddle, or in woffle irons. When eggs cannot be procured, yeast makes a good substitute; put a spoonful in the batter, and let it stand an hour to rise.^[1]

Footnotes

1. ↑ Mary Randolph, The Virginia Housewife (Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1984). This transcription is from the 1838 edition, available online.

See Also

• Dining with Congress