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Buckwheat Cakes

Buckwheat Cakes are a batter made with buckwheat 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 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. Combine cold water, salt, and buckwheat flour in a stone jar and mix until smooth.

  2. Add the yeast (dissolved in ½ cup tepid water) and mix well.

  3. Cover the jar and let it sit in a warm place overnight.

Finish and cook

  1. Dissolve the baking soda in boiling water and mix it into the batter.

  2. Stir in the molasses.

  3. Bake on a hot griddle greased with pork fat.

  4. If the first cake is bitter or heavy, add more baking soda to the batter.

Keep a starter

  1. Reserve 1 cup of the batter for the next batch, cover it with cold water, and store it in a cool place until evening.

  2. Pour off any clear water, then add fresh buckwheat, water, and salt. Stir smooth and let it sit until the next day.

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

Yeast
Ferments the batter overnight, producing gas that makes the cakes light and airy.
Buckwheat flour
Forms the body of the batter and gives the cakes their characteristic earthy flavour.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter's acidity to add lift and help set the cakes' texture.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour, and helps the cakes brown on the griddle.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda. Baking soda must be fully dissolved and mixed through the batter. Too little leaves the cakes heavy or bitter, while the fermented batter's acidity needs it to react and lift the cakes.

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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