Rare Southern Hoe Cake Recipe
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If you like biscuits, you’re guaranteed to love this rare but delectable recipe for southern hoe cake.
Hoe cake (also known as a Johnny cake) seems to be a rather elusive recipe, even among southerners. Apart from my own, I have only one friend whose family still makes it. Even among us though, the variations are vast. His family makes their cornmeal hoe cakes using cornmeal and buttermilk, as seems to be the custom among recipes found on the web. While this style of generally resembles a , a is typically fluffier and doesn’t include . Meanwhile, my family’s version uses flour and produces a bread that looks like buttermilk biscuits, but with a lighter and fluffier texture and crispy coating.
Either way you look at it, hoe cake is revered by those who know of it. I am sure its origin sprang forth much like the rest of our classic southern dishes – too little time and too few ingredients. While it is a simple food to make, it will easily take over the starring role at your dinner table.
I can honestly say that this is a rare recipe for Southern hoe cakes, having searched and not found it anywhere online. I do hope you will try it and guarantee that if you like biscuits, you’ll love our southern hoe cake recipe. Serve your hoe cake as a side dish with maple syrup, apple butter, or butter with a drizzle of honey or sprinkle of sugar. It tastes best accompanying your favorite Southern-style main meal. I recommend fried chicken, chicken and gravy (use the hoe cake to soak up the gravy, yum), North Alabama-style pulled BBQ chicken, or pork chops.
Recipe ingredients
Recipe ingredients- Self-rising flour. If you don’t have self rising flour where you are, go here for the formula of how to make your own.
- Vegetable shortening
- Whole milk
Helpful Kitchen Tools
Combine two cups of self-rising flour and 1/2 cup of shortening in a .
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Pour a thin layer of vegetable oil into the bottom of a cake pan.
This is where the old folks use a cast iron skillet like you would make cornbread. However, at the time of this tutorial, Mama had yet to hand down a cast iron skillet to me so I figured a cake pan with a wee bit of wear on it is just as good. Either way, you’re going to add enough oil to cover the bottom of your cake pan and then stick it in the oven while it preheats.
Add one cup of milk to your and stir with a spoon until all wet.
It should look like this.
You can add about a quarter of a cup more of milk if need be, but what we are aiming for here is soupy biscuit batter.
All that brown is the crispy bread. This is SO GOOD!
Cut it any way you choose, add some apple butter and dig in!
Recipe Notes
- If you want to make this southern hoe cake a savory side dish like , you can easily add in jalapenos, grated cheese, or chopped fried bacon with a drop of .
Storage
- If you have leftovers, store them in an airtight container in the fridge for up to four days.
- Otherwise, you can freeze hoe cake in a sealed container or bag for up to three months.
- When you need to reheat the hoe cake, it’s best to place the slices on a baking sheet in a 350-degree oven for five to 10 minutes.
Recipe FAQs
What do you serve with hoe cake?
Serve your hoe cake as a side dish with maple syrup, apple butter, or butter with a drizzle of honey or sprinkle of sugar. It tastes best accompanying your favorite Southern-style main meal. I recommend fried chicken, chicken and gravy (use the hoe cake to soak up the gravy, yum), North Alabama-style pulled BBQ chicken, or pork chops.
Where does the name hoe cake come from?
Just like there are a few variations of hoe cake recipes, there are some variations in the explanation of how it got its name. It appears to have first been recognized in print in 1745, according to the Oxford Dictionary. But others have pointed out that the term hoe was used for cooking and it was similar to a griddle. And that my friends seems to be where the term hoe cake (or should it be ?) got its name.
Can you make hoe cake gluten-free?
Yes, you can easily make this southern hoe cake recipe gluten-free. Just simply use gluten-free self-rising flour instead and follow the below instructions.
Ingredients
- 2 cups self-rising flour
- 1 cup milk
- 1/2 cup vegetable shortening
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425. Pour a thin layer of oil to cover the bottom of an eight-inch round cake pan and place it in the oven to heat.
- Cut shortening into the flour well. Pour milk in and stir until wet.
- Pour into the well-heated pan and bake for fifteen to twenty minutes or until browned.
- Invert onto plate.
Nutrition
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Lots of good old fashioned ways to make & call it 🙂
I think i will try making it in the “muffin topper” pans that make 6 of them. Thanks for the tip of using a cake pan. we always either cooked stove top or used a cast iron skillet.
i think if you add an egg and sweeten it up it becomes like a scone – & you could add some blueberries or other softened dried fruit.
Happy summe everyone!
When I was growing up, we had this often but called it “biscuit pone”. Mother made it when she was in ahurry and didnt have to make cut out biscuits. I love it and dont waste a crumb of it. Christy, you are the only other person I know who makes a lot of food like I learned to cook.
I thought “genuine” hoe cake had cornmeal in it. (??)
If your mother made it that way, then that is genuine for you :). This is how my Mama made hers. There are two varieties. I talked about that in the introduction of this post.
Make it how you love it and that will be genuine 🙂
Gratefully,
Christy
My family also made in a cast iron griddle on top of stove. We called it flour bread. Yum!
That’s one good thing about southern cooking. It is what it is, no matter what name you call it.
That is exactly it Sandy!!!
I’ve missed this bread since my granny died. My mom nor her sisters never really knew how she made it. We ate it everyday with fresh vegatables in the summer. There was never enough to go around. My granny’s bread seemed thinner and she cooked it on top of the stove in a cast iron skillet. I can’t wait to try this.
My mama made this on the stovetop in a cast iron skillet. She called it “doughny bread”. Anyone ever heard of it referred to as that?
Marcia, my family also did it this way but we called it flour bread.
In our family (Southern Louisiana) this is called flour bread also. Our hoe cake is simliar but made with corn meal. the dessert version (with sugar and butter) is a tea cake. All three recipes have been in our family since slavery.
What a legacy you have Bettina!
Bettina….would you be willing to share your Hoe Cake recipe that is made with corn meal! Sounds great and would love to see it to compare.
Bettina, a girlfriend gave me her family’s recipe for tea cakes. She said the recipe was just what to start out with. ( As we talked about it, it seemed to be…some times you just didn’t have much, so you did with what you had.) She said put more flour in it to make them harder. I absolutely love them hard. Thanks for reminding me of my friend.
I never heard it called that, but I’ve heard it called “Johnny bread” or “Johnny cakes”.
This is how we made it in Georgia but we called it a hoecake. Oh how this brings back memories.
I used this recipe today and made Drop Biscuits. They were wonderful! I will use the recipe again and make it in this form.
This is exactly like the ones my Grandfather cooked for me. He called it a hoe cake and I never understood why everyone else’s hoe cakes were flat. He would cook it in a cast iron skillet over a camp fire and we would eat it like a biscuit.
That is EXACTLY how my Daddy made it…I have been searching for the recipe for years!! All the ones I have seen have cornmeal in it…my Daddy would flip it in the air to turn it, and then cut it like a pie or pizza. Our favorite as kids growing up!!
My mama and grandma made hoe cake, but they made up thier biscuit dough and put on top of a old griddle or in a frying pan that had been greased and fried it on top of the stove,flipped it over and fried the other side , crisp and good!
Sometimes grandma would take butter, soghram syrup and sour cream and mix together to spread on the bread yummm!