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Buckwheat Cakes

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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

  1. In a bowl, combine warm water, buckwheat flour, salt, and yeast to create a thin batter.

  2. Prepare the batter the night before for breakfast.

  3. In the morning, mix in molasses, water, and baking powder.

  4. If the batter is too thick, add a little warm water.

  5. Save some batter for next time; add more water and flour but no yeast.

  6. Repeat the morning process with baking powder and molasses.

  7. If the batter becomes sour, add baking soda dissolved in warm water.

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

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.

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