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 ↓
Raised Buckwheat Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Dissolve the yeast in the lukewarm water and scalded milk, then add the sugar.
Gradually add the buckwheat flour and all-purpose flour along with the salt, beating until the mixture is smooth and free of lumps.
Cover the mixture and let it rise in a warm place for about 1.5 hours.
If letting it stand overnight, use half a cake of yeast and keep the mixture cool.
If the batter is too stiff when frying, add a few tablespoons of water.
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.
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Buckwheat + flourtop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together660 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + buckwheattop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together328 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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
Swap the buckwheat
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, flour):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Jalapenofits about as well
- Buckwheatthe original
- Nutmegfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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