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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Thanks for the recipe. I’m from California and had never heard of hoe cakes until I read our book club selection, “March” by Geraldine Brooks. I learned (from the computer) that the batter used to be poured onto heated hoes and baked that way. Also learned they are sometimes called “Johnny Cakes”. Johnny was an abbreviation for journey. Evidently these were commonly taken on journeys……back in the day….
Our club will be meeting soon and I promised to bring these cakes. And, like the book, I will serve them on a tin plate. I doubt if anyone has eaten them, including me, so it will be a real treat!
Thanks again, Christy Jordan!
(Oh, by the way, iron skillets are supposed to be good for you because you do get iron from them.)
Wwwaaahhh I broke mine all up trying to get it out of the pan lol, so it was jumbled up 😀 Still good but needs salt. Hubby suggested using bacon grease in the pan next time 😀 I used a cast iron skillet, I will definitely try this one again, would be yummy with some strawberry jelly 😀 Carm
Next time you make them use more grease….
I looooooovvvveeee this recipe!
I am soooo excited to have found a recipe! I am of course from the south (Northeast FL) My great-grandmother who is half Cherokee would make this every day no matter what. My family before i was born was very poor and often times that would be all they would have to eat. It was always made in a cast iron skillet and just left on the stove in the skillet for you to get as you wanted–just tear it apart, not to be cut. My dad would often tell stories about how he would have a hoe cake sandwich to take with him to school–they were hoe cake and lettuce, that’s it nothing else. My mom’s family also made it but not every day, and they called it “daisy bread” but it was the same thing. I remember eating it a lot and always loving it, I remember it being like a sweet biscuit and crunchy. Made a big pot of beans last night and don’t care what folks say, aint nothing better then the hoe cake and beans!I made a trip to Paula Deen’s restaurant when I heard she had hoe cake but was so bummed with the corn meal pancakes!
My dad was born December 1903 in South Mississippi. Many times over the years I’ve heard him tell how as a boy he and his sibblings carried hoe cakes with fat back tucked inside a syrup can for lunch to school.
Grandma’s version was slightly different from yours. Her Grandma learned to make them during the war between the states. My Grandma made a few minor adjustments, to suit her own style of cooking. Grandma rarely used shortening. She used lard, butter or bacon fat, just as her Grandma had. She added more milk than you do, so the batter was more liquid, though still an extremely thick and lumpy batter. She started it on the stove top. After she poured the batter into the hot pan, sometimes she would sprinkle the top with cornmeal. When the edges were nicely browned, she flipped it and put it in the oven.
My mother-in-law cooked what she called hoecake but she cooked it in a skillet on top of the stove. Have you ever tried this?Y What would I need to change to try this? Yours is the 1st recipe I’ve found using flour. Thanks,
Mim
You don’t need to change anything!! This is the recipe I’ve seen my mom use snd she always cooked it on the top of the stove ( as I now do) We have never used any thing except cast iron. I use the size 0 flat skillet (no sides just a small rim) easier to turn. Find a large rounded spatula to turn it over with if you can’t find one I started out just sliding it to a plate then turn the skillet over the plate and flip.
Also greatful to see the recipe brings back so many memories.
P.S.
Forgot, it can be made with water instead of milk, not as good of course but there were times when we had no money for milk.
That is correct we always used water. My grandmother was all about conserving.
Mim,
my grandmother cooked our hoecakes made with flour on top the stove as well. If memory serves correctly only a tbsp or two of liquid goes in and you should have a dough consistency product that you press in the pan mold to it.
This sounds just like my mom’s hoecake! Most recipes online seem to be for the cornmeal variety, and even Paula Deen’s recipe is different than what I remember (she and my mom are the same age from the same area and even sound alike). I’m going to try this if my mom doesn’t email me back with her recipe in time. 🙂