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Buckwheat Cakes

A buckwheat batter made with bread crumbs, yeast, milk, water, salt, flour, molasses, and baking soda, cooked on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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

Prepare the batter

  1. Pour scalded milk over bread crumbs and soak for 30 minutes.

  2. Dissolve yeast cake in lukewarm water and add to the soaked mixture along with salt and buckwheat flour to make a pourable batter.

  3. Let the batter rise overnight.

Finish and cook

  1. In the morning, stir the batter well, then add molasses and baking soda dissolved in lukewarm water.

  2. Cook the batter on a griddle as you would for pancakes.

  3. Save enough batter to raise another batch instead of using yeast cake; this will require ½ cup.

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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Milk + buckwheattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together328 recipes

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

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Yeast cake
Ferments the batter overnight, producing bubbles that make the cakes light and airy.
Buckwheat flour
Forms the body of the batter, giving the cakes their earthy flavor and structure.
Scalded milk
Soaks the bread crumbs and adds moisture and tenderness to the batter.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and depth of flavor, and helps the cakes brown on the griddle.
Baking soda
Reacts with the fermented batter's acidity to add lift and a lighter crumb.

The step that matters

Letting the batter rise overnight. The yeast needs time to ferment the batter; rising too briefly leaves the cakes dense, while the batter must be stirred well before adding the baking soda so the leavening is evenly distributed.

Swap the buckwheat

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, flour, 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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