Name: Buckwheat Cakes
Ingredients: 1 quart buckwheat flour; ½ cup cornmeal, scalded; 2 cakes compressed yeast (Fleischmann's); 2 tablespoons brown sugar; 1 teaspoon salt; warm water, enough to make a thin batter

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

1 quart buckwheat flour
½ cup cornmeal, scalded
2 cakes compressed yeast (Fleischmann's)
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
warm water, enough to make a thin batter

Directions

In a large bowl, combine buckwheat flour, scalded cornmeal, yeast, brown sugar, and salt.
Add warm water gradually until you achieve a thin batter.
Beat the mixture well and set it aside in a warm place to rise.

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.

Buckwheat + flourtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together660 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Buckwheat + sugartop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together198 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).