Name: Buckwheat Cakes
Ingredients: 1 quart buckwheat flour; 4 tablespoons yeast; 1 tablespoon salt; 1 handful cornmeal; 2 tablespoons molasses; warm water (enough to make a thin batter); additional flour as needed

Why it works: Buckwheat and flour work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 660 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Buckwheat Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

In a large bowl, combine buckwheat flour, yeast, salt, cornmeal, and molasses.
Add warm water gradually to create a thin batter and beat well.
Set the batter in a warm place to rise.
If the batter is slightly sour in the morning, add a small amount of baking soda dissolved in hot water.
Each night, reserve about 1 cup of the batter to use as a starter for the next day.
Continue adding the usual amount of flour each night and beat well before cooking.
For variation, you can use two-thirds buckwheat and one-third oatmeal, omitting the cornmeal.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Buckwheat + flourtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together660 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,429 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Buckwheat + molassestop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together199 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).