Rare Southern Hoe Cake Recipe
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
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
You may also like these recipes:
Easy Birthday Cake Recipe From Scratch
Biscuit Class – Classic 3 Ingredient Biscuits
Garlic Cream Biscuits with Bacon Gravy
My mom’s from Calhoun, GA and my dad’s from Florence, SC. My mom didn’t learn to cook until they got married so I don’t know where her recipe for hoecake comes from. Her recipe is like Christy’s except my mom used oil instead of shortening. Like many cooks, my mom’s recipe doesn’t have exact ingredient measurements. She uses about 1 cup of self rising flour, 1-2 tbs vegetable oil, and enough milk to make the batter a little thicker than cake batter. She always cooks hers in a cast-iron skillet with a little oil in it on top of the stove. I have done this, too, but now prefer using a non-stick skillet as it is less likely to burn and is easier to flip. She cooks it on low heat (2-3) until bubbles start to form on the top. She flips it and cooks 3-5 minutes longer. This will make an 8″ round, 1 – 2″ thick cake. We like to use a bread knife to slice it in half, pull the top layer off, and pour melted cheddar cheese over it. Sometimes we add country ham and eggs. It’s also good with red-eye gravy, and my husband’s favorite way to eat it is with butter and cane patch syrup. We’ve served this to many people and everyone loves it.
My mother use to make this and fry it on top of the stove. she called it flap jacks. We were very poor and really enjoyed mamas flap jacks.
My mama made it more like biscuit dough and fried it also. We called it hoe cakes. I still like it today with good sausage and syrup.
i’m a Georgia girl who moved to Alabama in 1976. i was traumatized by their idea of cornbread here in southeast alabama- plain meal and water. in Georgia we used sr meal, flour, eggs and milk. big difference.
anyhow, i have been making biscuits a long time but have never gotten them like my mama’s or Hardee’s (which is the texture for which I strive) . i made this hoecake last night. The texture was very close to what i have been searching for!!! Thank you!
Carolyn, I enjoyed your comment about the cornbread in southeast Alabama. My husband has family in northern Alabama and they make their cornbread with plain meal and water. I am from Southern Arkansas to Ohio and now in middle Tennessee and we make our cornbread like you. The first time I saw her make her cornbread with meal and water I could not believe it. I thought she had gotten busy talking and forgot but I mentioned the milk and egg and she said they do not put that in their cornbread, but I prefer ours. Traumatized is a good word to describe me too when I saw her make it that way.
Hey Christy! Every couple weeks, we go over to some friends’ house for the afternoon. We make dinner together and just spend a few hours together. Yesterday there were more people than usual (about 12) and we had a southern themed barbecue. There was a big hunk of pork, collard greens, cornbread, coleslaw, baked beans, and we brought my famous mac and cheese (people always request it and swarm around it). I also made hoe cake over there! We live in Alaska and no one had ever heard of hoe cake so they were fascinated. Served it with honey and butter because that’s what our friends had. Everyone scarfed it down and just loved it 😀 Thought you’d like to know!
This reminds me of a larger version of the cornbread patties my granddad would cook. Are they similar?
I am confused. did you forget the cornmeal? i am new to a lot of southern recipes but i really thought hoecake was a form of cornbread…
I talk about that at the start of the post 🙂
Gratefully
Christy
My brother called this ” fried bread” although is was baked. We loved our fried bread with molasses and butter.