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Dessert

Buckwheat Cakes

Buckwheat cakes are made by mixing buckwheat flour, wheat flour, warm water, yeast, and salt, then baking on a greased griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Buckwheat and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 113 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Buckwheat Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Mix the buckwheat flour, wheat flour, warm water, yeast, and salt in a bowl at night.

  2. If the batter is very light, stir it down an hour before cooking and let it rise again.

Cook and serve

  1. Preheat a greased griddle over medium heat.

  2. Pour batter onto the griddle and cook until golden brown on both sides.

  3. Serve immediately, stacking the cakes in the center of the plate with the top side facing up.

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.

  1. Buckwheat + wheattop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together113 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Buckwheat + flourtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together660 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + wheattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Buckwheat flour
Forms the bulk of the batter and gives the cakes their earthy, nutty flavor.
Wheat flour
Adds gluten that gives the cakes structure so they hold together on the griddle.
Yeast
Ferments the batter so it rises and becomes light and airy.

The step that matters

Cook the cakes until golden brown on both sides. Bubbles form and set on the surface before the cake is flipped. Flipping too early tears the cake and leaves it doughy in the middle, while cooking too long on high heat browns the outside before the inside sets.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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