BUCKWHEAT CAKES  Original Recipe From Old Standard B&O Recipes Download Buckwheat Cake Recipe, Letter and Author’s Note Here 1½ cups Buckwheat Flour  1¾ c cold water    ½ t dry active yeast   ¼ t salt     ½ T dark syrup  (can be corn syrup or pancake syrup) ½ t baking soda    1 T milk or water ¾ T Butter     Mix buckwheat, water, yeast, and salt, making a heavy batter. Let the batter stand overnight. In morning add dark syrup to batter. Dissolve baking soda in the milk or water and add to batter. Melt some butter in a skillet or griddle and spoon in batter to make cakes the desired size.  Cook at medium heat until bubbles appear and the top of each cake appears dry. Then flip and cook the other side. Makes 8 six-inch cakes. Buckwheat_Cakes_files/BUCKWHEAT%20CAKES%C2%A0.docshapeimage_5_link_0
A Letter About This Buckwheat Cake Recipe From Baltimore & Ohio Magazine, November 1928:                                                 March 20, 1928 Mr. E.V. Baugh Manager, Dining Car & Commissary Department Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Baltimore, Md.   My dear Mr. Baugh:    I travel on the Baltimore & Ohio preferentially wherever I go its way. Yesterday morning I arrived at Washington, D.C. on The Capitol Limited; this morning I returned to Chicago on The Capitol Limited.    Both mornings I ordered buckwheat cakes, of which I am a devotee. Both mornings they were dark brown instead of the normal buckwheat gray, and both mornings they lacked the acid taste that belongs to a genuine buckwheat cake.    This morning I asked the steward why and he said: “Our recipe calls for syrup sweetening.” That answers as to both the brown color and lack of the acid taste.    I used to get genuine gray, properly acidulated buckwheat cakes on the Baltimore & Ohio. I have not had them this year, nor last – ones that taste “like mother used to make.” Alas, no more!                                                    Yours,                                        Hungry for a Real Buckwheat Cake Author’s Note: Preston County, which is home to both the town of Rowlesburg and the city of Kingwood as featured in When the Whistle Blows, is also the home of the annual Buckwheat Festival, which is held the last weekend of September every year in Kingwood, West Virginia. Each year since 1938, the Buckwheat Festival has included festivities such as parades, a fantastic carnival and judging of livestock. Buckwheat Princesses, Queen Ceres, and a Buckwheat King are elected from the local school (or in past year, schools). A great many of my female relatives were Buckwheat Princesses in years gone by! One of the very best parts of attending the Buckwheat Festival is that buckwheat cakes and whole hog sausage are available around the clock. This recipe was given to me by Tom Greco and Karl Spence, authors of Dining on the B&O, Recipes and Sidelights from a Bygone Era (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009). I have to agree with the author of the 1928 letter – I usually don’t like mine made with syrup in the batter because it takes away the buckwheat’s distinctively bitter taste. Either way, though, I hope you’ll enjoy eating buckwheat cakes as much as I do! – Fran Cannon Slayton, author of When the Whistle Blows. http://www.buckwheatfest.com/shapeimage_6_link_0

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