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Buckwheat Cakes

Buckwheat Cakes are a batter made from buckwheat flour, cornmeal, all-purpose flour, potato yeast, salt, warm water, molasses, and baking soda, cooked on a griddle.

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 ↓

Buckwheat Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine buckwheat flour, cornmeal, all-purpose flour, potato yeast, and salt.

  2. Add enough warm water to create a stiff batter and mix well.

  3. Cover and let it sit overnight.

Finish and cook

  1. In the morning, stir in molasses and baking soda dissolved in boiling water, adjusting the soda to your taste.

  2. Cook on a hot griddle until golden brown 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. Buckwheat + flourtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together660 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Buckwheat + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together37 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Flour + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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

Buckwheat flour
Forms the bulk of the batter and gives the pancakes their earthy, nutty flavour.
Potato yeast
Ferments the batter overnight, producing gas that leavens the pancakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the fermented batter to add lift and a lighter crumb.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour, and helps the surface brown.

The step that matters

Cooking on the griddle. The griddle must be hot enough to set the batter quickly and brown it. If it is too cool, the pancakes absorb fat, turn pale and gummy, and the browning from the molasses and sugars in the batter does not develop.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Beetrootfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against buckwheat, 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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