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Buckwheat Cakes

A griddle-cooked batter of yeast, salt, sugar, flour, buckwheat, molasses, and warm water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Buckwheat Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Dissolve the yeast in warm water.

  2. Mix in the salt, brown sugar, flour, and buckwheat until well combined, then beat the mixture well.

  3. Stir in the molasses before baking.

Cook

  1. Cook on a hot griddle until lightly browned on both sides.

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. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. 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

Yeast
Ferments the batter so the pancakes rise and develop a light, airy texture.
Buckwheat
Forms the main body of the pancakes and gives them their earthy, nutty flavour.
Flour or meal
Adds structure to the batter, helping it hold together while cooking.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, depth and colour to the pancakes.

The step that matters

Beat the mixture well. Thorough beating works air into the batter and distributes the yeast evenly, which helps the pancakes rise and cook with an even crumb.

Swap the buckwheat

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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