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Breakfast

Buckwheat Cakes

Buckwheat cakes are a batter made with buttermilk, water, yeast, salt, buckwheat flour, and baking soda, then cooked on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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

Make the batter

  1. Combine buttermilk and water in a bowl.

  2. Stir in yeast and salt.

  3. Gradually add buckwheat flour to form a batter.

  4. Cover and let rise overnight.

Finish and cook

  1. In the morning, dissolve baking soda in a little water and add to the batter.

  2. Bake on a hot griddle.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Buttermilk + buckwheattop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together40 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Buckwheat flour
Forms the batter's body and gives the pancakes their earthy, nutty flavour.
Yeast
Ferments the batter overnight, producing gas bubbles that lighten the pancakes as they rise.
Buttermilk
Adds acidity and moisture, and its acid helps activate the baking soda.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter's acidity to release carbon dioxide, adding extra lift and browning.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda. Baking soda should be dissolved fully and mixed in just before cooking. Its gas release starts once it meets acid, so it works best added to the rested batter just before it hits the griddle, which keeps the pancakes light.

Swap the buckwheat

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (buttermilk, flour):

  1. Jalapenofits better
  2. Buckwheatthe original
  3. Nutmegfits less well
  4. Cinnamonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against buttermilk, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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