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Bread

Buckwheat Bread

A buckwheat bread made with buttermilk, egg, heavy cream, molasses, salt, baking soda, and buckwheat flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine buttermilk, beaten egg, cream, molasses, salt, and baking soda.

  2. Add buckwheat flour gradually until the mixture thickens to a corn bread consistency.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking dish.

  2. Bake for 30 minutes or 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. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Buttermilk + creamtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together674 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Buttermilk + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Buttermilk
Provides acidity that reacts with baking soda to help the bread rise.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to release gas that lifts the batter.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, color and moisture, and promotes browning.
Buckwheat flour
Thickens the batter and gives the bread its earthy, nutty flavor and structure.

The step that matters

Add the buckwheat flour gradually. Buckwheat flour has no gluten, so the batter sets mainly through the egg and starch. Adding it slowly lets you stop at a thick, pourable corn bread consistency rather than an overly stiff dough, which would bake dense.

Swap the buckwheat

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against buttermilk, egg, cream, molasses, flour. 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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