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Buckwheat Cakes
Buckwheat flour, when properly ground, is perfectly free from grits. The grain should be run through the smutter with a strong . The grain should be run through the smutter with a strong blast before grinding, and the greatest care taken through the whole process.
Adulteration with rye or corn cheapens the flour, but injures the quality. The pure buckwheat is best, and is unsurpassed for griddle -cakes. To make batter, warm one pint sweet milk and one pint water (one may be cold and the other boiling); put half this mixture in a stone crock, add five tea-cups buckwheat flour, beat well until smooth, add the rest of the milk and water, and last a tea -cup of yeast. Or, the same ingredients and proportions may be used except adding two table-spoons of molasses or sugar, and using one quart of water instead of one pint each of milk and water. - Miss S. A. Melching.
A yeast-raised overnight batter, not a baking-powder one — the whole character of the cake depends on the long ferment, so plan on mixing it the night before. The first two sentences concern flour milling and can be ignored at the stove.
- The hinge: this is an overnight batterThe hinge: this is very likely an overnight batter -- a teacup of liquid yeast implies a slow rise of several hours rather than an immediate bake, and comparable period buckwheat recipes direct that the batter be set the night before. The recipe itself gives no timing. Mix it in the evening, cover loosely, and bake in the morning, when the batter should be bubbly and smell faintly tangy.
- Yeast substitutionThe "tea-cup of yeast" is homemade barm or a liquid yeast starter, not modern packaged yeast. For an overnight rise, about 1/2 teaspoon of instant dry yeast is the right order of magnitude — a full packet ferments too fast and too flat in flavour.
- Teacup measureNineteenth-century teacups were not standardised, and this book does not define one. A common modern working equivalent is about 3/4 cup, which would make five teacups roughly 3 3/4 cups of buckwheat flour, but treat that as a starting guess. Judge by consistency instead: the finished batter should pour in a thick ribbon, thinner than a cake batter.
- "Sweet milk"Fresh unsoured whole milk. The term is used to distinguish it from the soured milk and buttermilk also common in nineteenth-century kitchens.
- Stone crockAny nonreactive bowl with room for the batter to double. A large glass or ceramic bowl does the same job.
- Buckwheat flourBuckwheat is not wheat and has no gluten, so this batter never develops structure; the yeast gas is all the lift there is. Modern light buckwheat flour gives a milder cake than the dark whole-groat flour implied here.
- If it is too sour by morningA long ferment in a warm kitchen can go sharp. A pinch of baking soda stirred in just before baking neutralises the acid and gives an extra puff; this was standard practice and not a modern shortcut.
- Griddle heat and yieldBake on a hot griddle, ungreased if it is well seasoned; buckwheat browns faster than wheat, so watch the first cake. The quantity should make somewhere around two dozen 4-inch cakes.
- Keeping the batter goingHouseholds held back a cupful of risen batter as the leaven for the next night, topping it up with flour and liquid. That works, but the batter sours steadily over a week or two and eventually needs restarting.
Buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum) is not a cereal at all but the seed of a plant related to sorrel and rhubarb, which is why it grows on thin, cold soil where wheat sulks "