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Buckwheat Cakes

A batter of buckwheat flour, cornmeal, yeast, and lukewarm water is cooked on a griddle to make flat cakes.

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 ↓

Buckwheat Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, combine buckwheat flour, cornmeal, salt, and yeast.

  2. Mix in enough lukewarm water to achieve a thicker consistency than batter.

  3. Cover and let it rise in a moderately warm place.

Cook

  1. When ready to bake, if the mixture is not sweet, add a little baking soda.

  2. Preheat a griddle and pour the batter onto it to cook 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).

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, nutty flavour.
Yeast
Ferments the batter so it rises and becomes light and airy.
Cornmeal
Adds a slightly grainy texture and helps the pancakes brown at the edges.
Baking soda (in the method)
Reacts with the acidity in the batter to add lift and help browning.

The step that matters

Letting the batter rise. Yeast needs time and a moderately warm place to ferment; if the batter is too cold or rises too little, the pancakes will be dense rather than light.

“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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