Name: Yeast-raised Buckwheat Cakes
Ingredients: 4 pounds buckwheat flour; 4 quarts water; 2 ounces compressed yeast; ½ ounce coarse sea salt; 1 cup molasses; 4 ounces melted butter

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 ↓

Yeast-raised Buckwheat Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sponge

In a large bowl, combine buckwheat flour, yeast, and water to make a soft sponge or batter.
Cover and let it stand overnight.

Finish the batter and bake

In the morning, add coarse sea salt, molasses, and melted butter to the batter. Mix until you have a medium batter.
Optionally, add a pinch of baking soda or a little cornmeal or wheat flour.
Preheat a griddle and bake the batter like you would for wheat cakes.

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).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,429 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Buckwheat + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together213 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Buckwheat + molassestop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together199 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Buckwheat flour: Forms the main body of the cakes, with a distinctive earthy flavour.
Yeast: Ferments the batter overnight, creating bubbles that lighten the cakes.
Molasses: Adds sweetness and depth of flavour, and helps the cakes brown on the griddle.
Melted butter: Adds fat for richness, tenderness and a softer crumb.