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Buckwheat Cakes

A batter of wheat and buckwheat flour, yeast, salt, and water is baked on a hot griddle to make quick cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. In a bowl, sift together the wheat flour and buckwheat flour.

  2. Add the yeast and salt, then mix in enough lukewarm water to form a batter.

  3. Let the batter rise in a warm place overnight.

Cook and serve

  1. In the morning, if the batter tastes sour, add a pinch of baking soda; if not, skip this step.

  2. Preheat a large griddle until very hot and grease it with lard.

  3. Pour batter onto the griddle and cook the cakes quickly, butter them, and serve hot.

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. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 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
Provides the main body and a distinctive earthy flavour to the cakes.
Wheat flour
Adds gluten structure so the batter holds together and cakes stay tender.
Yeast
Ferments the batter overnight, producing gas that makes the cakes rise and turn light.
Baking soda (in the method)
Neutralises sourness in the risen batter when it has turned too acidic.

The step that matters

Grease and heat the griddle thoroughly before pouring. A very hot, well-greased griddle sets the outside of each cake quickly, so it browns and releases cleanly instead of sticking or spreading into a dense pancake.

“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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