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Buckwheat Cakes

A batter of buckwheat, cornmeal, wheat flour, eggs, milk, butter or lard, and yeast, baked after rising.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the buckwheat flour, cornmeal, wheat flour, and salt.

  2. In another bowl, combine the warmed milk and beaten eggs, then add to the flour mixture.

  3. Stir in the butter or lard and yeast until well combined.

Rise and finish

  1. Cover and let the batter rise overnight.

  2. If the batter is sour, stir in enough dissolved baking soda to correct the acidity before baking.

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. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. 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
Gives the cakes their characteristic earthy flavor and dark color.
Wheat flour
Provides gluten structure so the batter holds its shape while baking.
Cornmeal
Adds coarse texture and body to the batter.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness.
Yeast
Ferments the batter overnight, producing gas for rising and a tangy flavor.
Milk
Provides moisture and hydrates the flours to form the batter.

The step that matters

Overnight rise. Yeast needs time to ferment the batter; under-rising leaves cakes dense and flat, while over-fermenting makes the batter sour and acidic, which is why the recipe corrects it with baking soda.

“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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