Rare Southern Hoe Cake Recipe
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
- 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
Thank you, Christy!
What a treat to read about all the lovely memories of this simple bread! I’ve loved reading of all the variations. I, too, have family roots in southern Alabama and share memories of other Alabama posters of the fried hoe cake on top of the stove in a cast iron skillet- and for us – fried in an inch of bacon fat. O.m.g — not healthy, but oh, so yummy! Torn off and dipped in syrup was a child’s delight.
My dad’s family was very poor and this was their bread. He often told of how the field workers would bring the flour to the field, make a dough with water, and cook it over a fire on cleaned off hoes.
As a child, I remember it was always served for breakfast at Grandma’s. When I was older and had my own family, Dad always made it when we came to visit. I’ve avoided making it at home because I didn’t deem it healthy enough. Now in my 60’s, I’m on a mission to make sure this doesn’t get lost and renew the tradition. It’s now on my Saturday morning breakfast menu. Maybe some of the others in my family will pick it up. At the moment, I’m working on developing a tried and true recipe. Got the frying down, now to get my ratio of liquid to flour perfect. Wish me luck!
My mother and grandmother (Tifton, Ga) made Hoe Cake in a fry pan on top of the stove…. flour and milk (no shortening) the consistency of biscuits …. oil in the fry pan and flatten out a handful of the hoe cake mixture to the shape of the pan…fry on each side till golden brown..ck inside to make sure it is done…. great with honey or jelly or best with cane syrup.. this is one of my favorite memories from my childhood..
What you have made is a hoe cake. The stuff made with cornmeal is a flap jack. My family is from Louisiana, this is how a hoe cake is done!
🙂
Great to find others that know of hoe cake. What a great simple tradition that has been passed down the generations. My grandmother made it for her grandkids, Dad made it my kids and I get to make it for my grandchildren. Our family (originally from Alabama) makes it with Martha White flour, water or milk (pancake-type texture) then fry it in bacon grease in an iron skillet. I’m not selling the products,but these are the brands Grandma and Dad insisted we use. Thank you for sharing the other recipes. I can’t wait to try different traditional family hoe cake recipes.
Exactly how I remember it! Thanks for the tip on the Martha White flour.
Hmmm….. this COULD be my brother, lol!
This is very similar to the hoecake that I make. I was taught to use vegetable oil instead of shortening, and canned milk instead of fresh.
As for its origins, my grandfather learned to make it when he worked on a shrimp boat as a teenager during the Depression. They didn’t have an icebox, so they had to use ingredients that didn’t need refrigeration, thus the need for the canned milk. He was from eastern NC, Beaufort County, to be precise.
I grew up in Selma,Alabama and I remember my Dad making this same recipe in a black cast iron skillet on top of the stove. This was about sixty years ago. I love how recipes are passed down through the generations.Thank you for keeping these memories going.
Thank you so much! I’m from Pensacola, FL with my grandmother being from Alabama. This is how she made hoe cake except she made hers on top of the stove. So delicious. She always let me eat mine with honey or syrup. She had the perfect caste iron pan to make it in. Have never been able to find one like it. She’s still with us but unable to cook any longer. Making this for her tonight.
How sweet Heather!! I know you are going to make her day!! Maybe she will let you use her cast iron pan to make it in 🙂
Heather,
If your grandmother is still with you, perhaps you can ask her for her recipe. Even if it is the same as this recipe, it would be nice to have it from her. If she can not write, then either write it down as she tells you or even record it. Then when you want to make some and if your grandmother has passed, you will have a good memory of the time she told you how to make hoe cake. And if you record it, you will have it in her own voice as well.
Also, I am really into preserving family stories. Perhaps you and any other young ones in the family can sit with her and talk with her about how she grew up, about her family, your grandfather and his family, etc. It really is a great thing to have years later to pass on to your own children.