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Catawba Buckwheat Cakes

A batter of buckwheat, cornmeal, and yeast is risen, baked on a griddle, and served with melted butter.

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

Catawba Buckwheat Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Dissolve the yeast in ½ cup of lukewarm water.

  2. In a bowl, combine the dissolved yeast, remaining water, molasses, salt, cornmeal, and flour.

  3. Add buckwheat flour until the batter is thin.

  4. Let the batter rise overnight.

Cook and serve

  1. Dissolve the baking soda in a little warm water and add it to the batter.

  2. Cook the batter on a hot griddle and serve with melted butter.

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).

  2. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Molasses + buckwheattop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together199 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Yeast
Ferments the batter overnight, producing gas that makes the cakes light and airy.
Buckwheat flour
Forms the bulk of the batter and gives the cakes their distinctive nutty flavor and structure.
Cornmeal
Adds a slightly gritty texture and coarser body to the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the fermented batter's acidity to add extra lift and a tender crumb.
Molasses
Provides sweetness and feeds the yeast during the overnight rise.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda. Baking soda needs an acid to react and release gas. Dissolving it fully in warm water and stirring it evenly through the fermented batter gives an even rise, while clumps leave dense or bitter spots.

Swap the buckwheat

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

  1. Jalapenofits better
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Buckwheatthe original
  4. Allspicefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, 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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