Are griddlecakes and sweet cake wholesome for supper and other meals?

The quick breads are convenient for any meal when there is time enough to bake them; especially in cold weather, when there is more likely to be a steady fire.

The quickest batter to mix and bake is the griddle-cake, or pancake. Almost every one likes them, when they are a fine brown, served with sugar, or maple sugar or sirup, or molasses. But how wholesome a food are they? This was another question that Miss Travers answered at the school exhibit, when they were discussing quick breads. The answer was something like this : We must remember that, although two cooked foods may have the same materials in them, one is easily digested and the other is not. And why?

What do we mean by "digestible"? "To digest" means "to dissolve" to make liquid. All solid food must become liquid, before it can be absorbed and carried about the body by the blood. The water that we drink helps to do this, but nature has provided us with substances, beginning with the saliva in the mouth, that help in the work of dissolving. You know that when you begin to chew food the saliva begins to flow, and, when the food reaches the stomach, the stomach begins to churn the food, and the gastric juice flows from the walls of the stomach to help this digestive process.1

What difference is there between the digestibility of the griddlecake, and of a light, dry muffin or biscuit? The flour in the griddlecake is not well cooked, for the time is too short. The cake is so soft that we do not chew it; and so the starch in the flour has missed the first step of digestion. This pasty mass in the stomach is a bad thing, especially with the large amount of sugar that we usually take on griddlecakes. But we like griddle cakes and we cannot go without them ! Can we not, when it is a choice between being strong and well, happy and helpful, on the one hand, and half well and dull with indigestion, on the other? There is no reason why healthy people should not eat griddlecakes once in a while; but griddlecakes are not meant for a steady diet.

How can we make griddlecakes more digestible? If people insist on eating them, we will try to make them as wholesome as we can.

1. Use some material that has been cooked before, - bread crumbs, cooked corn meal, oatmeal, rice, or any other cooked cereal.

2. Make them very light and porous with sour milk and soda, or with baking powder. One good cook makes delicious, dry, light griddlecakes by using sour milk and soda, and a little baking powder, too.

1 See a physiology for further description of the digestive process.

3. Bake the griddlecakes as thoroughly as you can. Do not take them from the griddle the moment they are brown, but let them stand until they are cooked "inside."

4. Do not drown them in sirup or bury them in sugar when you eat them.

5. Take small mouthfuls, and try to chew each portion.

Sour milk griddlecakes.

What and how much.

Flour

Salt

Melted butter

Sour milk

Soda

Egg

2 1/2 cups

1/2 teaspoonful

2 tablespoonfuls

2 cups

11/4 teaspoonfuls

How to make. Mix dry ingredients. Add sour milk, egg well beaten, and melted butter in order given. Beat thoroughly. Drop by spoonfuls on a greased griddle, and let cook until the edges are done and the cake full of bubbles. Turn with a cake turner or knife, and cook on the other side. Serve with butter and sirup or scraped maple sugar.

Cake making. One of the Pleasant Valley girls said that her father and brothers wanted cake at every meal. Cake has good food materials in it; so why should we not eat it often? Some food has to be cooked; why should it not be cake? The answer to this is a simple one. Although sugar is an important fuel food, yet, if we use too much, it is likely to cause an acid ferment in digestion and to irritate the stomach. Little children should not take more than two ounces a day, and grown people about four. We should not eat sweets between meals; and the best time for a piece of candy, even, is at the end of a meal.

Fig. 59. - Marjorie Allen made a loaf of cake for supper one Saturday.

Cake is a soft food, too; so we swallow it easily without chewing. For this latter reason, cookies, which are drier, are more wholesome than cake. Moreover, if we depend on cake, we may take less of more useful foods like bread and butter, vegetables and fruit, eggs and milk.

Must we give up cake? No, indeed; but we should be temperate in using it. We think of the word "tem-perance" in connection with alcohol, but it can be ap-plied to eating, just as well.

Miss James gave very little time to cake making in her cooking lessons, because the Pleasant Valley girls, who could cook little else, already knew how to make cake. Most families have good rules of their own for cake, cake filling, gingerbread, and cookies.

Miss James advised the girls to learn to make one cake mixture and to use it with different flavorings and fillings. They laughed at first when Miss James spoke of one-egg cake, and were sure that it would not be good, but they found it very light and well flavored. Miss James explained that when eggs bring a good price it is sensible to use as few as possible in cake. Here are a few of her rules :

A table of three recipes for one and two egg cake.