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Buckwheat Cakes, to Make

Buckwheat cakes are a batter of buckwheat flour, cold water, yeast, salt, and baking soda, fried like flapjacks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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, to Make

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix the buckwheat flour with cold water.

  2. Add the yeast and coarse sea salt.

Ferment overnight

  1. Let the mixture sit in a warm place overnight.

  2. If the batter is sour in the morning, stir in the baking soda.

Cook the pancakes

  1. Fry the batter like flapjacks.

  2. Save some batter to rise for the next batch.

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).

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 body and structure of the batter and the pancakes.
Cold water
Hydrates the flour so it forms a pourable batter.
Yeast
Ferments the batter, producing gas for rising and sour flavor.
Baking soda
Neutralizes the acids made during fermentation, balancing a sour batter.

The step that matters

Adding baking soda only when the batter is sour. Baking soda neutralizes the acids produced during fermentation. Add it only when the batter tastes sour, because too much can leave a soapy, metallic taste.

“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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