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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Just thought I’d put in my two cent’s worth. My mom’s family is from Kite, Georgia and her mother “Mama” always made hoe cake from White Lily self-rising cornmeal, salt and a some water to hold it together. This soupy batter is poured into a cast iron skillet with oil and fried until they are crispy on the outside, tender on the inside “pancakes”. Like others commented before, this was cooked over a fire on a hoe (cleaned off I’m sure!) We use this instead of bread for supper. I had never seen this type of recipe for hoe cake and it looks great! I’ll have to give it a try this week. Thanks for the recipe!
When I was little, my grandmother in Carolina made this on top of a wood stove in an iron skillet. I never knew what it was called but it was so good hot or cold. I make fried bread for my family and they all love it! Will have to try this on top of stove! Thanks for the recipe!
I hope you enjoy and it brings back many great memories Lunette!!
i have made my hoe cake bread with buttermilk, and cooked it in a iron skillet on top of the stove, browned 1 side, then using a spatula flipped it over and browned the other, takes about 12 to 15 minutes,, so good, and i like it better cooked on stove than in oven,,
Karen
I have been making these for over 60 years. Mama called them flapjacks if I fried them and hoe cakes if I baked them. And cooking them on or in a wood stove just made them taste better. I also fried cornbread.
I don’t have whole milk at this time. What would happen if I used either 2% or maybe buttermilk?
They look so good!
I’ve made this recipe with skim milk, chocolate milk and even almond milk. It has come out good all ways honestly though a little different. And I made it in an electric skillet at 375.
Buttermilk is the best in my opinion.
Christy, Thank you for sharing, my mom made these with flour as you did. I remember once when I was sick, she made hoe cakes with tomato gravy. This was the best meal I had ever eaten. I made these tonight for my family with a tomato gravy and it was a hit. I hope my Mom is smiling down from heaven tonight!!! Thank you!
I bet she is Tim!!
I have been making this ever since I found it on your site about a year and a half ago. It is absolutely the best!! I took it to a quarterly luncheon at church,and a man told me it was the best cornbread he had ever had! Was he surprised when he found out there was no cornmeal in it! He had his wife get the recipe! Thanks for all of your fantastic recipes!!!
According to Harriet Tubman ‘ s bio, she had 1 hoecake browned in the fireplace for breakfast, and for lunch, if there was time, she would be given another hoecake and for dinner salted pork. The next time you have a hoecake remember that slaves lived off just 1 or 2 a day. Thanks Willie Lynch for providing the blueprint for all Slave Masters and Slave Mistresses to follow.
Maybe your oven is wearing out? Just a thought that temp isn’t being regulated.
The hoe cake is believed to begin with slaves working in the fields. As lunch time approached, workers would mix corn meal and water into dough, place it on the flat surface of the hoe and cook over hot coals. Thus the “hoe cake”.
That’s more like the recipe I heard of, & the etymology makes sense, too.