Name: Quick Buckwheat Cakes
Ingredients: 1 quart buckwheat flour; ½ teacup cornmeal or wheat flour; ¼ teaspoon salt; 2 tablespoons syrup; water (cold or warm) to make a thin batter; 4 tablespoons baking powder

Why it works: Buckwheat and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 113 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Quick Buckwheat Cakes

Ingredients

1 quart buckwheat flour
½ teacup cornmeal or wheat flour
¼ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons syrup
water (cold or warm) to make a thin batter
4 tablespoons baking powder

Directions

In a bowl, combine buckwheat flour, cornmeal or wheat flour, salt, and syrup.
Add enough cold or warm water to create a thin batter.
Finally, stir in the baking powder until well mixed.

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.

Buckwheat + wheattop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together113 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Buckwheat + flourtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together660 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + wheattop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,373 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + syruptop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,540 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Buckwheat + syruptop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together52 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).