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To Make Buckwheat or Johnny Cake

A simple buckwheat batter baked into a cake using buttermilk, egg, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Buttermilk and buckwheat work together. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 40 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

To Make Buckwheat or Johnny Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Mix the baking soda into the buttermilk.

  2. Add enough buckwheat flour or Indian meal to create a thin batter.

  3. Incorporate the egg into the mixture.

Bake

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until cooked through.

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. Buttermilk + buckwheattop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together40 recipes

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

  2. Buckwheat + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together224 recipes

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

  3. Buttermilk + eggtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,986 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in buttermilk to release gas, helping the cake rise.
Buttermilk
Provides acidity that activates the baking soda and adds moisture and tenderness.
Buckwheat flour or indian meal
Forms the main structure of the batter once it is set by heat.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness as it sets.

Swap the buckwheat

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (buttermilk, egg):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Buckwheatthe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Parsleyfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against buttermilk, egg. 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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