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Buckwheat Griddle Cakes
1 cup Five Roses flour 1 cup buckwheat ½ cup sugar ½ teaspoon salt 2 teaspoons baking powder ¼ cup butter (melted) 1½ cups sweet milk.
The book gives proportions only, on the assumption that anyone reading the griddle cake chapter already knows the drill: combine, then bake on a hot greased griddle. A few points are worth pinning down.
- Method, since none is givenWhisk the dry ingredients together, stir in the milk and melted butter, and mix only until the dry streaks disappear. Ladle onto a greased griddle, turn once when the surface loses its gloss and bubbles break, and do not press the cakes down.
- Buckwheat means buckwheat flourOne cup of buckwheat flour to one cup of wheat flour gives a dark, earthy, slightly bitter cake. Buckwheat has no gluten, so the wheat flour is doing all the structural work; do not tip the ratio further toward buckwheat expecting the same results.
- Five Roses flourA Canadian hard-wheat all-purpose flour from the Lake of the Woods mill. Ordinary all-purpose flour is a fair substitute; bread flour is closer still if you have it.
- Sweet milkSimply fresh milk, as distinct from the soured milk or buttermilk that many recipes of the era call for. Whole milk is the right choice here since there is no acid to react with soda.
- The sugar is highHalf a cup for two cups of flour makes a distinctly sweet cake that will color fast on the griddle. Keep the griddle at a steady medium, around 375F, rather than screaming hot, or the outsides will be dark before the centers set. A quarter cup of sugar makes a more neutral cake if you intend to serve them with syrup.
- Let the batter standTen minutes of rest lets the buckwheat hydrate; it drinks liquid slowly and the batter will thicken noticeably. Thin with a spoonful or two of milk if it stiffens past a heavy pouring consistency.
- Griddle temperature testA drop of water should skitter and evaporate in two or three seconds. Grease lightly and wipe the surface between batches, since buckwheat sugars stick readily.
- YieldAbout fourteen cakes of four inches, serving three or four. The batter does not hold well overnight once the baking powder is wet.
The Five Roses Cook Book was issued by the Lake of the Woods Milling Company of Winnipeg and Montreal and distributed in enormous numbers to Canadian households who bought its flour, which explains why the brand name is written into the ingredient list itself. Buckwheat cakes were a staple of North American winter breakfasts, particularly in the eastern provinces and the northern states, where buckwheat grew well on poor ground and matured fast enough for short seasons. The older method was a yeast-raised batter, mixed as a sponge the night before and often kept going for weeks by saving a cupful as starter for the next day; this version belongs to the chemically-leavened generation that replaced it, trading the sour tang and overnight wait for baking powder and fifteen minutes.