Johnny Cake is a dense, biscuit-textured bread from The Bahamas made with flour, sugar, milk and baking powder. Johnny Cake is best served warm with jam and butter or for breakfast with slices of cheese.
Changing it Up Today
Normally in these blog posts, I try to spend as much time as possible relating my writing back to the food. I don’t always do the best job, but it’s not too common for me to get completely off track. When you, my readers, hear stories about my life, it’s normally about my relationship with travel or my experiences with particular foods. Sometimes it’s just easier to keep my true life and my true feelings– how I feel in this very moment in time– off of the internet.
Most of this is because I’ve read a lot of negative talk surrounding bloggers that write about their lives in their blog posts. You’ve seen the memes (or, actually, maybe you haven’t because you’re not as invested in this tiny space on the internet as I am. Regardless, they exist.) Tweets and memes and jokes that make fun of bloggers and the fact that they write personal blog articles before the recipe appears on their website.
At first, I gave into that mindset. If people don’t want to hear about my life, I won’t write (anything significant) about my life. Instead, I’ll focus the blog on the food. How I came across the recipe; how I cooked the recipe; how I found the ingredients for the recipe; how you can change up the recipe if you want. All of that is important, absolutely. But I’ve started to find myself dreading writing my blog posts.
Blogging is a Creative Experience
Blogging is a creative endeavor. It takes precision and grit, yes. But above all, it’s about creativity. Creating recipes takes creativity; taking photographs takes creativity; writing articles should take creativity.
I’m a little hard on myself when it comes to the first two. Recipe creation and photography don’t feel creative to me because I find the need to make them so perfect (and get upset when they’re not).
But writing, it doesn’t have to be perfect. That’s why it used to be my favorite.
But once I started catering to plain, boring, here’s-the-recipe, type writing, I lost interest.
Here’s the Deal
So here’s the deal. If a food blogger wants to write about their food, it’s okay. And if a food blogger wants to write about their job, it’s okay. If a food blogger wants to write about the random expedition that they took to the vet with their dog that day, it’s okay. And if a food blogger wants to write about how they’ve been feeling lonely and sad living in their hometown while everyone else has moved away and they don’t have many friends left in town, it’s okay too. And I don’t want to feel self conscious about that anymore.
Blogging is a form of self-expression, so I shall express myself in whatever way I see fit, thank you very much. And if your finger has to scroll to the bottom of the page to evade my ramblings, then so be it (but I hope you don’t because I hope you love my writing because despite this sassy paragraph, I really love you so very much. Sorry for being sassy.)
Let’s Get Back to the Johnny Cake
Anyways, what recipe are we talking about again? Ah, yes. Johnny Cake. It’s really good. You should try it. And that’s all I’m gonna say about that.
(Seriously though. And serve it warm with butter and jam. Or use it to soak up soup or as a side to a meat dish. Eat it with anything, because it’s really good. It’s kind of like a biscuit in wedge form and I really love it a lot. See? I can’t shut up about the food either.)
TRY THE JOHNNY CAKE. AND THANKS FOR READING.
Johnny Cake (The Bahamas)
Ingredients
- ½ cup butter room temperature + extra for greasing pan
- ¾ cups sugar
- 4 cups flour
- ½ cup water
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 3/4 cup milk approximately
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
- Using an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar together until combined.
- Add the flour, water, salt, and baking powder to the bowl.
- Add the milk slowly until the batter is sticky.
- Dust hands with flour. Transfer dough from bowl to a greased 9×9 pan. Gently flatten the dough in the pan.
- Bake for approx. 1hr or until the edges of the johnnycake are browned. The johnnycake will not rise much.
- Let cool for several minutes before cutting into the johnnycake.
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