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Dessert

Buckwheat Cakes

Buckwheat cakes are baked with sour milk, molasses, egg, baking soda, salt, common flour, and buckwheat flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and buckwheat 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

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, combine sour milk, molasses, and beaten egg.

  3. Stir in baking soda and salt.

  4. Add equal portions of common flour and buckwheat flour to create a batter. Mix thoroughly and pour onto a greased baking surface.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake until golden brown.

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. Flour + buckwheattop 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. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Molasses + flourtop 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

Sour milk
Provides liquid and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to lift the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in sour milk to produce gas, causing the cakes to rise.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure to hold the cakes together.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and a darker color to the cakes.
Buckwheat flour
Gives the cakes their distinctive earthy flavor and nutty taste.
Common flour
Supplies gluten-forming proteins that give the cakes body and hold their shape.

The step that matters

Mix the batter with the baking soda and sour milk. Baking soda must react with the acid in sour milk while the batter is still wet and mixed in; if it sits too long or is not evenly combined, the cakes may rise unevenly or be flat.

Swap the buckwheat

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, molasses, egg, flour. 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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