The Canton Cake Griddle — Three-Cake Flop Griddle
SSC MUSEUM COLLECTION
Catalog No. SSC-CANTON-GRD-1898-001
“The Canton Cake Griddle” | Three-Cake Flop Style | Canton, Ohio
Pat’d Apr. 28, 1898 • Canton Cake Griddle Co.
Bottom view showing full cast marking: “THE CANTON CAKE GRIDDLE / MF’D BY / CANTON CAKE GRIDDLE CO. / CANTON O. / PAT’D APR 28 1898.” Wire bail handle original to the piece. The marking is among the most complete manufacturer identifications in the SSC collection—company name, city, state, patent date, and product name all cast into a single surface.
Before the electric griddle, before the non-stick pan, before the short-order cook’s flat-top—there was the flop griddle. And the Canton Cake Griddle Company of Canton, Ohio built one of the best. This three-cake hinged griddle represents a category of cast iron cookware that has almost entirely disappeared from the modern kitchen vocabulary: a purpose-built pancake machine, patented, manufactured, and sold as a single-function tool designed to do one thing perfectly. You poured batter into the three individual wells, waited for the cakes to set, then “flopped” the hinged flat lid over to flip all three simultaneously. No spatula required. No broken cakes. No guesswork.
The Canton Cake Griddle Co. was a niche manufacturer in Canton, Stark County, Ohio—a company that appears to have existed for the sole purpose of producing this specific product. Unlike the large multi-line foundries of the Ohio Foundry Corridor, Canton Cake Griddle was a single-product operation: it made flop griddles, marked them with its name and patent date, and sold them into a market that valued purpose-built kitchen tools. The company represents a category of Ohio manufacturing that the SSC collection is increasingly documenting: the small, specialized foundry operation that produced one thing, produced it well, and left behind marked iron as its only surviving corporate record.
The marking on this piece is among the most complete and legible in the entire SSC collection. Five lines of cast text identify the product name, the manufacturer, the city and state, and the patent date. For a researcher or collector encountering this piece a century after it was made, there is no ambiguity about what it is, who made it, or where it came from. Canton, Ohio put its name on this iron, and the iron kept the name.
Piece Details
Open view showing the operating configuration: three individual rounded-rectangular wells on the right half for pouring batter, and the flat hinged lid on the left that flops over to flip the cakes simultaneously. The hinge mechanism runs the full length of the centerline. Wire bail handle extends from the hinge end.
Manufacturer
Canton Cake Griddle Co.
Product Name
The Canton Cake Griddle
Piece Type
Three-Cake Flop Griddle (hinged pancake/egg flipper)
Material
Cast Iron with wire bail handle
Dimensions
Approximately 13¾” long x 5½” wide (closed)
Marking (Bottom)
THE CANTON CAKE GRIDDLE / MF’D BY / CANTON CAKE GRIDDLE CO. / CANTON O. / PAT’D APR 28 1898
Patent Date
April 28, 1898 (as cast; collector references also cite April 28, 1896 on other specimens)
Date of Manufacture
Circa 1898–1910 (estimated)
Place of Manufacture
Canton, Stark County, Ohio
Configuration
Three individual rounded-rectangular wells (right half); flat hinged lid (left half); full-length center hinge
Handle
Wire bail handle at hinge end; appears original to piece
Condition
Very Good — complete with original wire handle; all three wells intact; hinge functional; legible markings; clean seasoned surface
Acquisition Date
November 28, 2025
Acquisition Source
Etsy — Seller: EarlyBirdRustyRelics
Etsy Order Number
3884453273
Transaction Number
4850065275
Purchase Price
$369.95 item − $4.95 discount = $365.00 + $0.00 shipping + $30.93 tax = $395.93 total
SSC Catalog Number
SSC-CANTON-GRD-1898-001
How a Flop Griddle Works
The flop griddle solved a problem that every cook who has ever made pancakes understands: the flip. Getting a spatula under a pancake at exactly the right moment, lifting it cleanly, and turning it without tearing or folding requires skill, attention, and a certain amount of luck—multiplied by however many cakes are on the griddle at once. The flop griddle eliminated the spatula entirely. The cook poured batter into the individual wells, waited for the cakes to set on the bottom and begin to bubble on top, and then grabbed the wire bail handle and “flopped” the hinged flat lid over the wells. The entire assembly—wells, cakes, and lid—was then flipped as a unit, and the cakes were now cooking on their second side against the flat surface. Three perfect pancakes, turned simultaneously, with no risk of breakage.
The three-well configuration was designed to sit across a single stove eye or over a section of a wood-burning range top. The rounded-rectangular shape of each well produced cakes of a uniform, slightly squared shape—not the round freeform cakes of an open griddle, but neat, stackable, consistent cakes that would have looked professional on a breakfast plate. The flat lid doubled as a warming surface when closed over the cooked cakes, keeping the first batch hot while the cook prepared the next.
This is purpose-built kitchen engineering from the 1890s—a patented solution to a daily cooking problem, manufactured by a company that appears to have existed specifically to make and sell this one product. The Canton Cake Griddle was not a sideline for a stove company or a catalog item from a multi-line foundry. It was the product, and the company was the product’s company.
Closed/top view showing the flat lid surface and overall proportions. The wire bail handle extends from the hinge end for gripping during the “flop” motion. Hinge pins visible at both ends of the centerline.
Canton, Ohio: Industrial Context
Canton, Ohio—the county seat of Stark County—was a significant industrial city in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Best known as the home of President William McKinley and the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Canton was also a manufacturing center with a diverse industrial base that included steel, machinery, roller bearings (Timken), vacuum cleaners (Hoover, in nearby North Canton), and a range of smaller specialty manufacturers. The Canton Cake Griddle Co. represents the smallest scale of that industrial ecosystem: a single-product company, likely a small foundry or a company that contracted its casting work to a local foundry, producing one patented item for the national market.
The company’s surviving corporate records appear to be limited to the iron itself. No factory photographs, annual reports, or corporate histories have surfaced in the collector literature. What we know about Canton Cake Griddle Co. we know from the castings: the company name, the city, the patent date, and the product. Multiple patent dates appear on surviving specimens—some collectors document April 28, 1896, while this piece clearly reads 1898—suggesting either a design patent and a utility patent, successive patent improvements, or production runs spanning multiple years with updated markings. The earlier Silas C. Schofield patent of 1881 for a hinged cake griddle from Freeport, Illinois established the basic concept; Canton Cake Griddle Co. refined and commercialized the form.
Historical Context: The Flop Griddle in American Cooking
1881
Silas C. Schofield of Freeport, Illinois patents a hinged cake griddle (US Patent 237,051) with individual circular pans hinged to an oblong griddle, establishing the basic flop griddle concept.
c.1890s
Canton Cake Griddle Co. established in Canton, Stark County, Ohio. The company refines the flop griddle design into a three-well rectangular format with a wire bail handle. Early specimens may carry an 1890 patent date.
1896–98
Patent date(s) cast on Canton Cake Griddle production. Multiple dates appear on surviving specimens: April 28, 1896 is most commonly cited in the collector literature; this SSC piece reads April 28, 1898.
c.1900s
Peak production period. Flop griddles are a standard item in American kitchen hardware catalogs, sold alongside conventional griddles, waffle irons, and gem pans. Multiple manufacturers produce competing designs.
c.1910–20s
Electric appliances and improved flat griddle designs begin to displace purpose-built flop griddles. The single-function tool gives way to the multi-purpose flat griddle and eventually the electric frying pan.
2025
Steve’s Seasoned Classics acquires this Canton Cake Griddle from Etsy seller EarlyBirdRustyRelics. The piece is documented as SSC-CANTON-GRD-1898-001.
Why This Piece Matters
The Canton Cake Griddle represents a category of Ohio cast iron that most collectors never encounter: the single-product specialty manufacturer. Where Wagner and Griswold and Favorite produced full lines of cookware across dozens of forms and sizes, Canton Cake Griddle Co. made one thing. It made it in Canton, Ohio, marked it with the city’s name, patented the design, and sold it into the American market. The company may have been small—possibly just a handful of people contracting with a local Stark County foundry—but the product survives more than 125 years later with every letter of its marking legible.
For the SSC collection, this piece extends the geographic range of Ohio cast iron documentation into Stark County—northeast Ohio, distinct from the Miami-Shelby-Auglaize County corridor of the Favorite/Wagner/Wapak foundries and the Cuyahoga County cluster of Cleveland’s forgotten foundries. Canton’s industrial heritage is well documented in steel and heavy manufacturing, but small-scale cast iron producers like the Canton Cake Griddle Co. represent a layer of that heritage that is easily lost when the only surviving evidence is the iron itself.
The iron endures. The markings tell the truth. The story deserves to be told.
Sources & Further Reading
Wagner and Griswold Society Foundry Guest Page — Canton Cake Griddle Co. listing: “CANTON CAKE GRIDDLE CO., CANTON, O.— pancake flop griddles (‘THE CANTON CAKE GRIDDLE’ Pat. Apr.28,1896).”
CastIronCollector.com — Foundry Database: comprehensive listing of antique and vintage cast iron hollow ware producers, including Canton Cake Griddle Co.
US Patent 237,051 (January 25, 1881) — Silas C. Schofield, Freeport, Illinois: “Cake-Griddle” patent establishing the hinged individual-pan flop griddle concept.
WorthPoint.com — Historical auction records for Canton Cake Griddle specimens with Apr. 28, 1896 patent date.
About Steve’s Seasoned Classics
Steve’s Seasoned Classics is an online museum dedicated to preserving and documenting the heritage of American cast iron, with a focus on Ohio foundry pieces from the 19th and early 20th centuries. The SSC collection features over 130 pieces with detailed provenance, historical research, and photography for each item.
