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Bread

Buckwheat Cakes

A batter of buckwheat flour, yeast, salt, cornmeal, molasses, and warm water is risen and cooked 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 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 bowl, combine buckwheat flour, yeast, salt, cornmeal, and molasses.

  2. Add warm water gradually to create a thin batter.

  3. Beat the mixture well and set it in a warm place to rise.

Keep the starter

  1. If the batter is slightly sour in the morning, stir in a small amount of baking soda dissolved in hot water.

  2. Each night, leave about 1 cup of the batter in the bottom of the bowl to use as a starter for the next batch.

  3. Add the usual quantity of flour and mix well each night.

Cook

  1. Cook the cakes on a hot griddle until golden brown.

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. 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 their earthy, nutty flavor.
Yeast
Ferments the batter so it rises and develops a light, airy texture.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and depth of flavor and feeds the fermentation.
Baking soda (in the method)
Neutralizes acidity in a sour batter, mellowing its tang and aiding browning.

The step that matters

Keeping the batter warm to rise. Yeast fermentation is slow in cold conditions, so a warm place is needed for the batter to rise properly. Too little warmth leaves the cakes dense and flat.

Swap the buckwheat

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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