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Buckwheat Cakes

A batter of buckwheat and wheat flour, yeast, molasses, and baking soda, baked on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Buckwheat and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 113 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Buckwheat Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the starter

  1. Mix buckwheat flour and wheat flour in a bowl.

  2. Stir in warm water to create a stiff batter.

  3. Add yeast and let the mixture rise overnight.

Finish and bake

  1. In the morning, pour most of the batter into another dish, leaving 1 pint for raising again.

  2. Add molasses and baking soda dissolved in hot water to the batter.

  3. Thin the batter with warm water until it is suitable for baking on a griddle.

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 + wheattop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together113 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Buckwheat + flourtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together660 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + wheattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 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 main body of the batter and gives the pancakes a nutty, earthy flavor.
Wheat flour
Adds gluten-based structure so the pancakes hold together better than buckwheat alone.
Yeast
Ferments the batter overnight, producing gas for rising and a tangy flavor.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a deep brown color to the pancakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses and batter to release gas, adding lift.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda. Baking soda reacts with the acid in the molasses and fermented batter to release gas. Mix it in promptly and cook the batter soon after, because the gas that gives lift escapes if the batter sits too long.

Swap the buckwheat

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, wheat, 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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