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Quick Buckwheat Cakes

Buckwheat cakes made with buckwheat flour, cornmeal, sweet milk or water, salt, molasses, and baking powder, cooked on a 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 ↓

Quick Buckwheat Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine buckwheat flour and corn meal.

  2. Add enough sweet milk or water to create a soft batter.

  3. Stir in salt and molasses.

  4. Before baking, mix in baking powder thoroughly.

Cook

  1. Cook on a hot griddle until golden brown on both sides.

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 + corntop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together67 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

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

  5. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Buckwheat flour
Forms the main structure of the cakes and gives them their earthy flavor.
Corn meal
Adds a slightly gritty texture and helps the cakes hold together.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, causing the cakes to rise and become light.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, depth of flavor, and some moisture to the batter.

The step that matters

Mix in baking powder thoroughly, just before baking. Baking powder starts releasing gas as soon as it hits moisture, so it should be evenly distributed and cooked promptly to give the cakes an even rise.

Swap the buckwheat

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, corn, milk, molasses. 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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