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Horsford Buckwheat Cakes

Buckwheat cakes made with buckwheat flour, molasses, acid, baking soda, and water, baked on a hot griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Horsford Buckwheat Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix buckwheat flour with warm water, salt, and molasses overnight until it reaches a griddle-cake consistency.

  2. In the morning, add acid and baking soda to the batter, thinning if necessary.

Bake

  1. Bake immediately 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 + 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).

  4. Buckwheat + vinegartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together36 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Molasses + vinegartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,253 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

Buckwheat flour
Provides the main structure and the earthy flavour of the cakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid to release gas, lifting the batter so the cakes rise.
Acid (like vinegar)
Reacts with the baking soda to produce gas for lift and adds a slight tang.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, depth of flavour and a darker colour to the cakes.

The step that matters

Bake immediately on a hot griddle. Once the baking soda and acid are mixed, they begin releasing gas right away and that lift fades as the batter sits. Baking at once on a hot griddle sets the cakes while the bubbles are still trapped, so they rise well.

Swap the buckwheat

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, molasses, vinegar. 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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