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Horsford Buckwheat Cakes
Mix "over night," with warm water, a little salt, and a tablespoon molasses, one pint buckwheat flour, to the usual consistency of griddle-cakes. When ready to bake for breakfast, add one measure each of acid and soda (or two heaping tea-spoons acid and one moderately heaping tea-spoon soda) of Horsford's Bread Preparation-thinning the batter if necessary-and bake immediately on a hot griddle.
A two-part chemical leavening recipe from the era when baking powder came as separate jars of acid and soda. The batter still needs its overnight rest, but the rise happens in the last minute before the griddle.
- Bake the moment you mixHorsford's acid phosphate is fast-acting: it begins releasing gas as soon as it meets the soda in wet batter. Little lift is held in reserve for the pan, so the batter goes on the griddle immediately or the cakes come out flat.
- Horsford's Bread PreparationA two-package leavener from the Rumford Chemical Works — monocalcium phosphate in one, bicarbonate of soda in the other. Modern double-acting baking powder combines both in a single tin; roughly 2 to 2 1/2 teaspoons stands in for the acid-and-soda pairing here.
- A pint of buckwheat flourMeasured by volume, about 2 cups, or 8 to 9 ounces by weight. Buckwheat is not a wheat and has no gluten, so the batter will never develop body; it should pour like thin cream.
- The overnight soakWith no yeast added, this rest works mainly as a hydration — buckwheat is coarse and thirsty, and the soak softens it so the cakes are tender rather than gritty — though some wild fermentation is likely too. Cover the bowl and leave it at cool room temperature; refrigerate it in a warm kitchen, since a slack batter left out overnight can sour.
- Unstated salt"A little salt" for a pint of flour is usually taken as roughly half a teaspoon. The tablespoon of molasses is there for color and browning as much as sweetness.
- Griddle heatThe book says only "a hot griddle": medium-high, with a drop of water skittering rather than sitting. Buckwheat and molasses both brown quickly, so watch the first cake and adjust.
- ThinningThe batter thickens overnight. Thin with water or milk after adding the leavening, working quickly, to a consistency that spreads on its own when ladled.
- YieldAbout a dozen four-inch cakes, enough for three or four at breakfast.
Buckwheat cakes were winter food across the northern states, traditionally raised with a yeast batter kept going from morning to morning in a crock by the stove — a sour, slightly funky pancake that took planning and a warm kitchen. What makes this version of the period is the branded shortcut: Horsford's Bread Preparation was the product of Eben Norton Horsford, a Harvard chemist who developed a calcium acid phosphate leavener and manufactured it through the Rumford Chemical Works in Rhode Island, selling it as separate packets of acid and alkali to be measured out together at the moment of baking. Recipes named for a proprietary product appear throughout Buckeye Cookery and its contemporaries, and they mark the point at which American home baking began shifting from the crock of overnight sponge to a tin on the shelf. The overnight step survives here anyway, in part because buckwheat meal simply bakes better once it has sat in water.**