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Breakfast

Breakfast Dishes

A buckwheat flour pancake recipe.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Breakfast Dishes

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix the saleratus with the buckwheat flour.

  2. Grease a griddle lightly to prevent sticking.

  3. Pour batter onto the griddle and fry until golden.

  4. Turn the cakes using a spatula.

  5. If desired, add a little all-purpose flour and molasses to the batter.

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

Saleratus
Reacts to release gas, helping the pancakes rise and become light.
Buckwheat flour
Forms the main body of the pancakes and gives them their earthy, nutty flavor.
All-purpose flour
Adds gluten-forming structure, making the pancakes sturdier and less crumbly.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, depth of flavor, and extra browning in the pan.

The step that matters

Turn the cakes using a spatula. Buckwheat batter has little gluten to hold it together, so the cakes are fragile. Turn them gently once the edges look set and the underside is golden, or they may tear or collapse.

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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