Name: Buckwheat Cakes
Ingredients: 1 quart buttermilk; 1 handful coarse sea salt; 1 pint warm water; ½ cup hop yeast; buckwheat flour (enough to make a batter); 1 teaspoon baking soda; hot water (to dissolve baking soda)

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 the evening, mix buttermilk, salt, warm water, and hop yeast in a bowl.
Stir in enough buckwheat flour to create a batter suitable for baking.
Cover the mixture and let it sit in a warm place overnight.
Before baking, dissolve baking soda in a small amount of hot water and add it to the batter.

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).
Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,721 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Buttermilk + buckwheattop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together40 recipes

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