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Griddle-cakes

A buckwheat flour batter cooked on a hot griddle to make cakes.

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 ↓

Griddle-cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Warm the sweet milk and water, combining half in a stone crock.

  2. Add the buckwheat flour and beat until smooth.

  3. Mix in the remaining milk and water, then add the yeast.

  4. If desired, add molasses or sugar and use 1 quart of water instead.

Cook the cakes

  1. Preheat a clean griddle until very hot, greasing only if necessary.

  2. Pour batter onto the griddle and do not turn the cakes while baking.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Buckwheat + molassestop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together199 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

Buckwheat flour
Forms the body of the batter, giving the cakes their structure and earthy flavor.
Yeast
Ferments the batter, producing gas bubbles that help the cakes rise and turn light.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and richness, softening the texture of the cakes.

The step that matters

Leave the cakes alone while they bake. Bubbles rise through the batter and the surface must set before flipping. Turning too early tears the cakes and deflates the bubbles that give them their lightness.

Swap the buckwheat

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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