Buckwheat Pancakes

There’s something about buckwheat pancakes that hearkens to an earlier time—pioneer days, log cabins, pot belly stoves, and all that. Perhaps it’s because buckwheat used to be a lot more popular a hundred years ago (according to Wikipedia, 20x the acreage cultivated in 1918 than today).

In spite of the name, there is no “wheat” in buckwheat. It’s not even a grain or grass. Yet in many ways it behaves like wheat, and its flour produces wonderfully, unexpectedly, fluffy pancakes, with a rich, warm, earthy taste.

We experimented quite a bit with this recipe, including an egg, excluding an egg, all buckwheat flour (naturally gluten-free), or half buckwheat, half all-purpose flour, and you know what? It’s all good.

My favorite combination includes an egg and uses half white flour and half buckwheat flour. But the combos without the egg or with all buckwheat flour were also fluffy, flavorful, and eat-way-too-many-able.

Buckwheat has zero gluten in it, so if you are at all gluten-sensitive, you shouldn’t have a problem with buckwheat (just use all buckwheat flour instead of the mix in the following recipe.) Griddle’s on!

Buckwheat Pancakes Recipe

The egg is optional, we've made the pancakes both ways, with egg and without. With egg results in just a little more structure to the pancake. To make gluten-free buckwheat pancakes, substitute the all-purpose flour with buckwheat flour.

Don't have buttermilk? You can substitute using 2 Tablespoons of white vinegar stirred into enough regular milk to make 2 cups. (After you stir in the vinegar, let the mixture sit for 5 minutes.) Or you can mix together 1 1/2 cups of plain yogurt and 1/2 cup of milk.

Ingredients

• Vegetable oil for coating the pan
• 3/4 cup (100g or 3.5 oz) buckwheat flour
• 3/4 cup (100g or 3.5 oz) all-purpose flour (can sub with buckwheat flour for a 100% gluten-free buckwheat pancake if you wish)
• 3 Tbsp sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
• 1 egg (optional)
• 2 cups (475 ml) buttermilk

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