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Buckwheat Cakes

A batter of flour, buckwheat, cornmeal, yeast, and water cooked on a griddle into golden cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and buckwheat 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

Make the batter

  1. Sift together the flour and buckwheat meal in a large bowl.

  2. Sift the cornmeal in a smaller bowl.

  3. Pour boiling water over the cornmeal and stir until it forms a smooth batter.

  4. Add the cornmeal batter to the flour mixture.

  5. Mix with warm water until well combined.

  6. Stir in the yeast.

  7. Beat the mixture for at least 10 minutes.

Rise and prepare

  1. Cover the batter and let it rise in a warm place, preferably in a pitcher or bowl covered with a cloth.

  2. Prepare the batter the night before.

  3. Let it rise overnight.

  4. Beat the batter again in the morning.

  5. Let it rise near the fire.

  6. Prepare your griddle.

  7. Dissolve the baking soda in a little hot water.

  8. Mix the dissolved baking soda into the batter just before cooking.

Cook

  1. Cook the cakes on the griddle until golden brown.

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. Flour + buckwheattop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together660 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cakes together as they cook.
Buckwheat meal
Adds a nutty, earthy flavour and a darker colour to the batter.
Cornmeal
Adds body and a slightly grainy texture to the batter.
Yeast
Ferments the batter during rising, creating bubbles that make the cakes light.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter's acidity to add lift and help browning.

The step that matters

Mixing in the dissolved baking soda just before cooking. Baking soda starts reacting as soon as it meets acid in the batter, so its lift fades if the batter sits too long. Adding it at the last moment keeps the cakes light and airy.

“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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