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Buckwheat Griddle Cakes

Buckwheat griddle cakes are made from buckwheat flour, cornmeal, milk or water, yeast, eggs, and baking soda, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Buckwheat Griddle Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Sift together the buckwheat flour and cornmeal.

  2. In cool weather, mix a moderately thin batter with lukewarm sweet milk; in warm weather, use water.

  3. Add coarse sea salt to taste and the hot yeast.

  4. Prepare the batter in a jar at 9 o'clock at night.

Finish and fry

  1. The next morning, beat in the eggs and let the batter stand for 15 to 20 minutes.

  2. Just before frying, sprinkle the baking soda over the batter and stir it in.

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. Buckwheat + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together328 recipes

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

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and milk 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 main body of the batter and gives the cakes their earthy flavour and structure.
Hot yeast
Ferments the batter overnight, producing gas that makes the cakes light and airy.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the cakes hold together while frying.
Baking soda
Reacts with the fermented batter's acidity to add lift and a lighter texture.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and richness to the batter, softening its texture.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda just before frying. Baking soda starts reacting as soon as it meets the acidic fermented batter. Adding it late and stirring it in briefly keeps the gas bubbles for lift instead of losing them while the batter waits.

“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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