Cornmeal Spoon Cakes

These are delicious little pancakes we use to scoop up chilli or bean stews (or we just eat them on their own). I usually use polenta-style cornmeal, which is a bit coarser than cornmeal typically used to make cornbread. This means that cooking it in the boiling water becomes very important to avoid crunchy cakes!

¾ cups cornmeal
½ cup boiling water
1 Tbsp (½ oz/14gr) butter
½ cup flour
1½ Tbsps sugar
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 pinch salt
¾ cups milk
1 egg, beaten

1. Cook the cornmeal in the boiling water with the butter over low heat for 5-10 minutes.
2. Stir in the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt and beat with a wooden spoon until well incorporated. It's important at the stage to be thorough and break down the cornmeal into small particles covered in the flour mixture; this will make adding the milk and eggs to make a smooth batter so much easier.
3. Mix in the milk and beaten egg and beat with a wooden spoon until the big lumps are gone. You can probably use a whisk since the batter should be pretty liquid. To tell the truth, I've made this with lumps in and you can't tell from the finished product.
4. Heat a griddle or pan over medium heat for 5 minutes before putting anything in it.
5. Add a bit of oil or fat and swirl around to cover the bottom of the pan, then drop soup spoons full of batter onto the griddle (you can fit 5 if you're careful) and cook until the edges are dry.
6. Flip and cook again until brown, set aside in a warm oven while repeating the process with the rest of the batter.