Name: Buckwheat Cakes
Ingredients: ½ lb wheat flour; ½ lb buckwheat flour; 1 quart matzoon (or buttermilk); 1 teaspoon baking soda; ¼ teaspoon salt

Why it works: Wheat and buckwheat 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

In a mixing bowl, combine the wheat flour, buckwheat flour, matzoon, baking soda, and salt.
Mix thoroughly until well combined.

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.

Wheat + buckwheattop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together113 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Flour + buckwheattop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together660 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,721 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,373 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Buckwheat + buttermilktop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together40 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).