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Buckwheat Cakes

Buckwheat cakes are a batter of buckwheat meal, Indian meal, molasses, yeast, baking soda, and water, baked on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Buckwheat and molasses work together. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 199 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Buckwheat Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Scald the Indian meal with just enough warm water to swell it.

  2. When cool, mix the Indian meal with the buckwheat meal and 4 cups of warm water until well combined.

  3. Dissolve the yeast in a little warm water and add it to the mixture along with the salt and molasses.

  4. Beat the batter for 5-6 minutes and set it to rise in a warm place overnight.

Rise and bake

  1. In the morning, beat the batter again and let it rise near the fire.

  2. Just before baking, dissolve the baking soda in a little warm water and stir it into the batter.

  3. Bake the cakes on a griddle and serve immediately.

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 + 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 meal
Provides the main body and earthy flavor of the cakes.
Compressed yeast
Ferments the batter so it rises and becomes airy.
Indian meal
Scalded to swell, it adds moisture and a tender crumb to the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter's acidity to add lift just before baking.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and depth of flavor, and feeds the yeast.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda just before baking. Baking soda reacts quickly with acids in the batter to release gas. If it sits too long, much of that lift is lost before the cakes reach the griddle, leaving them flat and dense.

“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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