Frying-pan cake

I wonder if a frying-pan cake is a pancake. I have checked it on Google Images but have found nothing.

Context of the word: a 19th cent. travel journal by a Victorian lady called Mary Eyre.

Two kinds of bread -one something like our English frying-pan cake- were laid on the table before me.

Hi Traductora,
I have never heard the term "frying-pan cake," and out of curiosity I tried to track it down. And, as luck would have it, I found an excerpt quoted in a book that describes ingredients and technique for cooking such a thing. Here is the link.

It is a quote from, apparently, an old cookbook about baking bread. The idea is that if the bread doesn't turn out well, one can always fall back on the fail-safe frying-pan cake, which is made thus:

unfermented dough baked in one cake about half an inch thick

So it's not the same thing as what I, in AE, would recognize as a pancake. It sounds like a standard flatbread, about half an inch thick.

It may be what is also called, in some parts, butter keak.

Made of flour and butter
paste, baked on a frying-pan, split
open and eaten hot ; also called
frying-pan cake

A Supplement to the Glossary of the Dialect of Cumberland
By E W Prevost, Simon Dickson Brown, William Dickinson
Published by H. Frowde, 1905
London, Oxford University Press Warehouse

Thanks very much, Kite and Cuchu 👁 Smile :)

This sounds to me very, very, very like a Northern Ireland specialty which is known throughout the civilised world as "soda bread" or "soda farls".

HERE is a very poor picture of this delicacy. There is nothing on this side of paradise that tastes like freshly made soda bread graced with farm-fresh butter.

It is also an essential ingredient, fried, of the traditional Ulster Fry breakfast.
In THIS PICTURE, fried soda appears on the left - at around nine o'clock.

I could be completely wrong, of course, but it's long past time you were educated about soda farls.

At the time of the writing, crumpets and similarly prepared items (such as the Scottish bannock) would have always been made on a griddle or frying pan. I assume that is what is meant.

panjandrum said:

This sounds to me very, very, very like a Northern Ireland specialty which is known throughout the civilised world as "soda bread" or "soda farls".

HERE is a very poor picture of this delicacy. There is nothing on this side of paradise that tastes like freshly made soda bread graced with farm-fresh butter.

It is also an essential ingredient, fried, of the traditional Ulster Fry breakfast.
In THIS PICTURE, fried soda appears on the left - at around nine o'clock.

I could be completely wrong, of course, but it's long past time you were educated about soda farls.

Dear Panj:

I had the pleasure of living in Belfast (Malone Road!) and, from what I remember, the soda bread you mention and show in the picutre was called POTATO FLAPS.

To be honest with you guys, I don't have a clue what the Catalan equivalent of this bread might be. I'll have to go and ask a local baker who knows about the history and evolution of bread.

Best regards from Catalonia 👁 Smile :)

In Dixie we'd call these "hoe cakes," and they're not really like soda bread because you add cornmeal and eggs. The same thing cooked in an oven like a cake would be called cornbread.

I think soda bread is closer to what we'd call a biscuit. We'd call most English biscuits crackers or cookies.
.

All this talk of biscuits and hoe cakes is making me hungry... 👁 Smile :)


But we seem to have lost sight of an important thing that both primary sources (cited in posts 2 and 3) have in common regarding "frying-pan cakes," namely that these are baked in a frying pan. There is nothing said about these cakes being fried at any stage. Hoe cakes, in my experience, undergo no cooking other than frying, and thus (aside from being made with different ingredients) are of a very different ilk than the frying-pan cakes described above.

Both American biscuits and Irish soda bread, I think (I've only had awful corruptions of it here in the US, I'm sure) are leavened with baking soda and sometimes buttermilk, which would give them a significantly different texture than what I am imagining for the very simple "frying-pan cakes" described in posts 2 and 3.

Why would these baked breads be cooked in a frying-pan, if they are not fried? Because a frying pan is the right shape - broad, round and shallow - for baking bread from dough that is not fermented/leavened.

kitenok said:

But we seem to have lost sight of an important thing that both primary sources (cited in posts 2 and 3) have in common regarding "frying-pan cakes," namely that these are baked in a frying pan. There is nothing said about these cakes being fried at any stage.

I kinda got lost in all that talk about ruining bread by trying to bake it in a cold oven-- then resorting to frying-pan bread. The talk about needing the oven for roasting meat reinforced my impression that the method of "baking" described here is to start a bottom crust by placing the frying pan over the firebox, then covering it and sliding it over so that it's directly above the oven. The iron plate lies right over the baffle that conducts air from the firebox, over the oven, around down under it-- then out behind it and up the chimney. This baffle can only be thrown when the fire has thoroughly heated the chimney (from hot gases directly escaping from the firebox). Once that pipe is hot, the short route is closed off, and the vapor and smoke from the wood/coal takes the more circuitous route.

While this is happening, you can "bake" anything in a thick enough cast-iron vessel, simply by setting it right above the oven and covering it. This is the same principle as a "dutch oven," which is not a baking vessel but a baking chamber set right on hot coals in the fireplace.

I agree johnny cakes are fried, and the batter is thinner than cornbread (and certainly thinner than biscuit dough). Since you're from down South I'm sure you know there's a combination of frying and baking involved in all these breads, in that the cast-iron skillet (a perfect tool, I agree) is heated right over the firebox until the shortening is so hot it almost smokes-- then the excess is poured off, and the batter or dough is placed in the pan to be popped into the oven.

There are so many variables involved in woodstove cooking, that the line between stovetop and oven cuisine gets a little blurred. The plate above the water tank is of another temperature range that can be used when the pots and pans are starting to crowd up-- and of course cakes bread and biscuits with a little too much vapor in em can be set on the warming tray to cure a bit before serving.

I hope this isn't just a rant-- the subject being "frying-pan cake," I think all these variables and ambiguities come into play, especially where regional differences come under discussion.

For 10 or 12 years I had only a woodstove for heat and cooking-- a rough way to go, this far north, but I wouldn't have it any other way. One great thing about woodstove cooking (during the warmer months) is that you don't necessarily have to stand guard over a meal-- at a certain point you can move on to other work, and the cooking will finish itself and of course "shut off" automatically as the fuel burns out.

A little like taking a nap in the wagon on your way home after the barn dance-- the "motor" knows his way home and will get you there safe and sound.
..

Dear helpers:

Since what I really need is to translate the term into Catalan, I would be most grateful if you could tell me whether a frying-pan cake would look like this: if it does, I have the solution! 👁 Smile :)

TraductoraPobleSec said:

Dear helpers:

Since what I really need is to translate the term into Catalan, I would be most grateful if you could tell me whether a frying-pan cake would look like this:

👁 fotos+prova+472.jpg

if it does, I have the solution! 👁 Smile :)

Yes, assuming it was baked in something like this cast iron skillet.

HERE is cornbread baked in a skillet.

Cagey said:

Yes, assuming it was baked in something like this cast iron skillet.

HERE is cornbread baked in a skillet.

It makes sense, Cagey. I guess I know now the Catalan equivalent for this sort of bread.

Thank you very much, everyone 👁 Smile :)