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Dessert

Buckwheat Cakes

Buckwheat Cakes are batter-based cakes cooked on a griddle, served with maple syrup.

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 ↓

Buckwheat Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Combine buttermilk, water, and yeast in a bowl.

  2. Stir in enough buckwheat flour to form a batter.

  3. Cover and let rise overnight.

Finish and cook

  1. In the morning, dissolve baking soda in a little water and add to the batter.

  2. Preheat a griddle and pour batter to form cakes.

  3. Cook until golden brown and serve with maple syrup.

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. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Buttermilk + buckwheattop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together40 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Buckwheat + maple syruptop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together40 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  5. Flour + maple syruptop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,034 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Buttermilk
Its acidity gives a tangy flavor and reacts with baking soda to help the cakes rise.
Yeast
Ferments the batter overnight, creating bubbles and a mildly sour flavor.
Buckwheat flour
Provides the main structure and the nutty, earthy flavor of the pancakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in buttermilk to release gas, lightening the batter for extra rise.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda in the morning. Baking soda reacts with the acid in the batter as soon as it is mixed in and releases gas quickly. Cooking the batter promptly after adding it keeps that gas in the batter, so the cakes stay light rather than flat.

Swap the buckwheat

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (buttermilk, flour, maple syrup):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against buttermilk, flour, maple syrup. 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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