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Buckwheat Cakes

A batter of buckwheat, cornmeal, wheat flour, buttermilk or molasses, and yeast, baked on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Buckwheat Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Combine buckwheat flour, cornmeal, wheat flour, buttermilk (or molasses), and yeast (or compressed cake) in a large bowl.

  2. Add enough warm water to form a thin batter and beat well.

  3. Cover and let the batter rise overnight.

Finish and cook

  1. Dissolve baking soda in hot water and add it to the batter.

  2. Beat thoroughly and bake on a hot griddle.

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. Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Buckwheat + buttermilktop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together40 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

Buckwheat flour
Forms the main body of the pancakes and gives them their earthy flavor.
Yeast
Ferments the batter overnight, producing gas that makes the pancakes light and airy.
Buttermilk
Adds acidity that works with the baking soda and tenderizes the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic batter to produce extra gas for rising and a lighter texture.

The step that matters

Let the batter rise overnight. Yeast needs time to ferment the flour and build gas. A short rise leaves the pancakes dense and flat, so the batter should be covered and left undisturbed until fully risen.

“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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