Happy Presidents' Day Hoecakes

When I read the blogpost that creative maven Jenn Erickson, of Rook No. 17, penned about George Washington - last year - I knew that I had to shamelessly steal her idea.  I love tying in food and history for the boys; they eat it up (pun fully intended)! 

Then I saw Jenn's post again a couple of weeks ago, revisiting her family's tradition of celebrating Presidents' Day with a hoecake breakfast, and I hopped on online to order the book: George Washington's Breakfast by Jean Fritz.*  The book came and the very same day D came home with the very same book.  He had picked it out of the school store; they earn "dollars" for good behavior and are able to use those dollars in the classroom store to purchase books.  So we actually now own two of those books.  However that didn't help me one bit when, in a cleaning frenzy this weekend, I stashed both copies somewhere.  Late last night I scoured my cookbook shelf and their bookshelves, but the books were nowhere to be found.  Perhaps I'll get it together next year - book and breakfast. 

Still I did manage to make the hoecakes for breakfast and they were a hit.  They especially liked when Jake brought the garden hoe in and showed them how the cakes were traditionally cooked. 

I didn't have all of the ingredients that Jenn uses in her recipe, so I tweaked and twisted to create my own version. And, though I am fairly certain that George Washington did not use it in his honey-butter, I added a pinch of fennel pollen to mine.

Ingredients

• 1 C white whole wheat flour
• 1 C yellow cornmeal
• 1 t baking powder
• 1 T raw sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 C organic heavy cream
• 1 T tangerine juice
• 1/3 C water
• 1/2 C butter, melted

Procedure

Put all of the dry ingredients in a bowl.  Add wet ingredients and stir till just combined.  Let batter rest while you heat your griddle/pan.  Swab the griddle/pan with butter.  Place tablespoons of the batter on your griddle/pan and cook till bubbles begin to form.  Flip and cook till golden brown.  Serve with honey-butter.  Click here for my fennel pollen honey butter recipe.

*This blog currently has a partnership with Amazon.com in their affiliate program, which gives me a small percentage of sales if you buy a product through a link on my blog. It doesn't cost you anything more. If you are uncomfortable with this, feel free to go directly to Amazon.com and search for the item of your choice.