Editor's Corner

Good morning, friends!

One of my favorite people used the phrase “selling like hot cakes” in an email the other day and then asked where that phrase came from. Well, he didn’t need to go any further, because I love pancakes! Is a hot cake the same thing as a pancake? Why do we have a phrase about a breakfast food, which is used to mean “to be in great demand”? Honestly, I’d answer any question for the promise of a pancake!

I started out wondering, “Are hot cakes and pancakes the same thing?” The article in Mental Floss says that the words are pretty darn old. Hot cakes go back to the 1600s and pancakes are from the 1400s. A quick search on my question, though, ended up not being so quick. Merriam-Webster has an entire article about this heavenly starchy food, with the following terms:

• pancake: thin, flat cake that’s made by pouring batter into a pan
• hot cake: a synonym for pancake
• flapjack: (U.S. and Canada) informal synonym of pancakes, with usage of either term typically depending on regional preferences. The word flapjack is traced back to the late 1500s. It’s a combination of the verb flap, in the sense similar to flip or toss, and jack, which comes from the proper name.
• griddlecake: another (less common) synonym for pancakes. The word griddle in the name commonly refers to a specific type of frying pan…used for cooking pancakes (and other things).

Mmmm. I’m ready for breakfast! But I haven’t really answered the question about where this phrase comes from. To sell like hot cakes means to “be sold quickly and in large quantities.” There is no exact event to pinpoint or time at which this became popular, so I’m going to go with an assumption that the etymologists have made:

Hot cakes have always been popular at events like county fairs and church socials, where the crowd greatly outnumbers the culinary staff and the cakes often sell as fast as they can be made, the term was coined and spread through popular usage.

Kara Church | Technical Editor, Advisory | Technical Publications

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