Griddle Cakes

Recipe from "Just for a Hlaf..." by the Cooks of Micel Folcland

adapted by Charles Ehlschlaeger aka Aleator

Ingredients (still working on proportions)

• 1 1/4 Cups flour
• 6 tbsps butter, melted
• 1 egg
• 3 tbsp honey
• 3/4 Cup rolled oats
• 1/2 Cup water or milk
• 1 Cup fruit that will store well (raisins, dried diced apples)

Directions

• Mix flour, 3 tbsp butter, egg, and honey until you get a crumbly mixture.
• Add water or milk to get a binding dough.
• Knead in oats and fruit.
• Make small balls of the dough that can be flattened into 1/4" thick by about 3" diameter cakes. (Period fry pans were often less than 6" in diameter: Imagine heating griddle cakes one at a time over campfire coals.)
• Generously coat the fry pan with butter for each cake.
• Heat each side of cake until brown and serve hot. There is no need to top the griddle cakes with honey, sugar, etc as the ingredients and the butter it was cooked in makes for a delicious meal.

Notes

• Griddle cakes were mentioned in Anglo-Saxon literature. There is a story of woman disparaging a King because he burned griddle cakes over a camp fire. Apples trees were twice as valuable as other fruit trees. Even though apples were smaller compared to today, an apple tree would still have generated many bushels of tasty food. It was likely that apples were a regular staple of meals. Ergo, small chunks of apple were probably the most common addition to griddle cakes.