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Dessert

Bread Cakes

Bread cakes are made from soaked bread, buckwheat flour, baking powder, soda, salt, butter, eggs, and milk, then fried on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Fayette (Mo.). Baptist Church, Ladies of the · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Bread Cakes

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 ↓

Bread Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak dry bread overnight in a little warm water until enough to make a quart.

  2. Drain off the water in the morning.

  3. To one cup of flour add a teaspoon of baking powder. Mix well.

Make the batter

  1. Beat up the soft bread with some milk.

  2. Add to this two well-beaten eggs, a teaspoonful of salt, then the flour and baking powder, and last of all a tablespoonful of melted butter.

  3. The butter should flow easily from the spoon.

  4. Rub a bit of salt pork on the griddle, hot.

  5. Drop a spoonful of batter for each cake.

Make the yeast batter and rise

  1. Mix one quart of buckwheat flour and a little salt with as much warm water as will make a thin batter.

  2. Beat it well.

  3. Add the yeast and a very little syrup.

  4. When well mixed, set it in a warm place to rise.

  5. As soon as it is very light, add half teaspoonful of soda.

Cook and serve

  1. Have the griddle hot and well greased.

  2. Bake the cakes to a delicate brown.

  3. Pour over them melted butter.

  4. Serve hot.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

684Calories
19 gProtein
18 gFat
108 gCarbs

Counts 5 of 6 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Buckwheatnot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Fayette (Mo.). Baptist Church, Ladies of the. 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. See the original page.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Buckwheat + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together213 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure to the cakes as they set.
Buckwheat flour
Forms the main body of the cakes and gives them their earthy flavour.
Dry bread (in the method)
Soaked and beaten, it adds moisture and body to the batter.
Melted butter
Adds richness and helps the cakes brown and taste rounder.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cakes rise and turn light.

The step that matters

Have the griddle hot and well greased. A hot, greased surface sets the outside of each cake quickly so it releases cleanly and browns evenly, instead of sticking or spreading.

Swap the buckwheat

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

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Buckwheatthe original
  4. Jalapenofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, egg. 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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