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Old-fashioned Buckwheat Cakes

A batter of buckwheat and wheat flour, yeast, milk, molasses, and baking soda cooked on a greased griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Buckwheat and wheat 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 ↓

Old-fashioned Buckwheat Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Sift the buckwheat flour, wheat flour, and salt into a small bowl.

  2. Add the lukewarm milk and the dissolved yeast, then beat the batter until smooth.

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

Finish the batter

  1. The next morning, stir the batter well, then add the molasses and the dissolved baking soda. Beat the mixture thoroughly.

Cook

  1. Drop spoonfuls of batter onto a hot, greased griddle and brown on both sides.

  2. Save enough batter each time to raise another mixing, using ½ cup of batter instead of yeast.

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 + wheattop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together113 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Buckwheat + flourtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together660 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  4. Flour + wheattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Buckwheat + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together328 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Buckwheat flour
Provides the main structure and the distinctive earthy flavour of the cakes.
Yeast
Ferments the overnight batter, producing gas that makes it light and bubbly.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses and batter acidity to add extra lift and a tender crumb.
Molasses
Adds moisture, mild sweetness, and deeper colour to the browned cakes.

The step that matters

Browning on a hot, greased griddle. If the griddle is not hot enough, the cakes spread and absorb grease without setting, and they will not brown well. Enough grease prevents sticking, while a properly heated surface sets the outside quickly so the cake holds its shape and browns evenly on both sides.

Swap the buckwheat

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, wheat, milk, 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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