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Really Good Buckwheat Cakes

A fried batter made from buckwheat flour, all-purpose flour, molasses, yeast, and baking soda.

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

Really Good Buckwheat Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Combine buckwheat flour, all-purpose flour, salt, and molasses in a bowl.

  2. Dissolve the yeast in 1 cup of warm water, then add the dissolved yeast to the flour mixture.

  3. Stir in enough warm water to make a good drop batter, then beat the batter thoroughly.

  4. Let it rise in a warm place overnight.

Cook the pancakes

  1. Sift in the baking soda and beat the batter again.

  2. Fry the batter in a hot skillet until golden brown.

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. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Buckwheat + molassestop 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

Buckwheat flour
Provides the main structure and the earthy, nutty flavour of the pancakes.
All-purpose flour
Adds gluten-based structure so the batter holds together when cooked.
Yeast
Ferments the batter during the overnight rise, producing gas that makes it light and airy.
Molasses
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and depth of flavour, and helps browning.
Baking soda
Reacts with the fermented batter to add extra lift and a tender crumb.

The step that matters

Overnight rise in a warm place. The yeast needs time and warmth to ferment the batter. Too cold and the batter stays dense; too hot and the yeast can die or over-ferment, so the pancakes lose their light texture.

Swap the buckwheat

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, molasses. 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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