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Buckwheat Cakes, Without Soda

A batter of equal parts wheat and buckwheat flour, milk, salt, and yeast, cooked on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and buckwheat 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 ↓

Buckwheat Cakes, Without Soda

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Scald the milk in a saucepan until it boils.

  2. Mix equal parts of wheat flour and buckwheat flour until the batter reaches the right consistency.

  3. Add a little salt to the mixture.

  4. When the milk is nearly cool, add a little yeast.

  5. Set the batter in a moderately warm place overnight.

Bake

  1. When ready to bake, do not stir the batter; dip with a spoon or pour it onto the griddle.

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. Wheat + buckwheattop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together113 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buckwheattop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together660 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  4. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Provides liquid that hydrates the flours and forms the batter's body.
Wheat flour
Gives the batter structure so the pancakes hold their shape.
Buckwheat flour
Adds a nutty, earthy flavor and a darker, more textured crumb.
Yeast
Ferments the batter overnight, producing gas that makes the pancakes rise and become light.

The step that matters

Do not stir the batter before baking. Stirring knocks out the gas bubbles that yeast built up during the overnight rest, so the pancakes come out flatter and less light.

“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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