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Griddle-cakes

Buckwheat flour, eggs, and milk are mixed to make a batter, then cooked on a hot griddle to form cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Griddle-cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Separate the eggs.

  2. Whip the yolks to a thick cream.

  3. In a bowl, combine the buckwheat flour and milk. Mix well.

  4. Fold in the whipped egg whites just before baking.

Cook and serve

  1. Preheat a clean griddle until very hot.

  2. If the cakes stick, sprinkle with coarse sea salt and rub with a cloth before greasing.

  3. Pour batter onto the griddle and cook until bubbles form on the surface.

  4. Do not flip the cakes.

  5. Serve the cakes with the same side up as when taken from the 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 + flourtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together660 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Eggs
Yolks add richness and body, while whipped whites lighten the batter for a tender texture.
Buckwheat flour
Provides the main structure and the distinctive nutty flavour of the cakes.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and forms the liquid batter that sets as the cakes cook.

The step that matters

Do not flip the cakes. Buckwheat batter is fragile and lacks much gluten, so flipping can tear or deflate the cakes. Cooking until bubbles form lets the surface set enough to hold its shape.

“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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