Saturday, April 19, 2008

Johnny cakes...arepas...not sure


I read about arepas at Gluten free girl's site and thought I would give them a try. Still not sure if I should be ingesting corn products but the occasional popcorn indulgence has been okay with me so I decided to try working with cornmeal.

Not sure what I did or didn't do but my arepas were tossed in the crapper.

With more corn meal in the house I googled and found some Aunt Jemina corn meal recipes and tried a variation of her Crispy Johnny Cakes. I am pleased.

To me , they look like English muffins, are more dense after cutting in half, and have a comfy yummy texture and taste to them.

I used my Hamilton Beach waffle/griddle appliance and didn't even grease it up.

The recipe I adapted was found at http://www.ajcornmeal.com/recipes/johnny-cakes-cm.htm

Mix together
1 cup cornmeal
1/2 cup white rice flour
1 tsp. Xanthan Gum
1 TBs sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup rice milk
1 TBs oil

Heat griddle and plop (my batter was doughlike)on 1/4 cupfuls onto griddle and close it up for about 7 min.

Split and pour on syrup or eat plain, or with any topping you desire.

"Johnny cake Johnny cake baker's can
Make what they want to in a pan
Mix it and fix it and mark it with a B
And toss it on the griddle for you and me."

8 comments:

Dianne said...

These look interesting Lynn, and I have to agree, they do look like English muffins. Great recipe, if they taste like English muffins, they will be something else I need to try!

:)

Lynn Barry said...

It is not so much that they taste like English muffins, maybe more like biscuits but then again I have not had anything like that in a long long time so it is getting harder and harder to compare things I do bake to tastes in my past before going gluten and dairy and lots of other things free...HUGS

Catherine said...

Yumm! I need to make some of these soon.

--Catherine
www.aglutenfreeguide.com

Lynn Barry said...

Hi Catherine,
I split one and toasted it this morning and topped it with Raspberry Pollaner Allfruit. With a chunk of fresh pineapple and a cup of white tea I had a breakfast that pleased me very much. HUGS

Carrie said...

Lynne - I'm not sure which kind of cornmeal you used to make the arepas! To make them you have to use a special cornmeal called harina PAN, it's different from most commercial cornmeals in the US. It is a precooked cornmeal that bakes and cooks differently from regular corn meal you buy here.

Lynn Barry said...

Carrie,
I used Goya's pre-cooked Masarepa white corn meal and it has a recipe on the back of the bag for arepas. I follwed that recipe which was similiar to what I read about at gluten free girl's site but skipped the oven part. Mine looked pathetic so I did the oven part and they were just rubbery and not appealing. I will try again, I may have done something else wrong and am willing to try again. But I am also thrilled with what I did here and will definitely do this johnny cake/arepa method again. I had another one today with a little peanut butter on it...delish!
HUGS

Carrie said...

lynne - isn't that weird that they didn't work out! I looked in 4 latin markets where I live and had no luck finding the harina pan, so i'm trying very hard to PATIENTLY wait for my online order to arrive!! ;-) I love johnny cakes too, so I'm glad I have an alternative if the arepas don't work for us!! ;-) (what else will I do with 3 bags of harina pan! I have high hopes! lol)

Lynn Barry said...

Let me know how you make out with it all...THANKS, Carrie, HUGS