Buckwheat Pancakes

It’s official; I stopped eating wheat and all the weirdness cleared up. Wheat allergy: check.

Not the end of the world though, because it turns out you can make waffles and pizza dough out of all sorts of things that aren’t wheat. Yesterday I picked up some buckwheat groats at my favorite health food store (buckwheat isn’t related to actual wheat, and it’s gluten-free) and today I milled them into flour and made pancakes, since I needed a very basic project for my test run.

I was pleasantly surprised by how much quicker and easier it was to mill buckwheat into flour than to mill regular wheat berries. But later I did a Google search on the health benefits of buckwheat and realized that I had bought hulled buckwheat instead of unhulled. So basically I made the equivalent of white flour instead of whole-grain flour. Oops. Next time I’ll make sure I get the whole, unhulled groats.

But OH MY GOODNESS, those pancakes ROCKED. They were WAY tastier than regular wheat pancakes. From now on I will only ever use buckwheat flour to make pancakes and waffles, because it is magically delicious.

I used a recipe that I found online, and modified it slightly to suit my own tastes. I’m posting my version here in case anyone wants to try it.

BUCKWHEAT PANCAKES

1 cup buckwheat flour (if you mill your own you’ll want to use a bit more to allow for the fresh-milled “sifting” effect)
1 tsp aluminum-free baking powder
2 Tbsp honey
1/2 tsp unrefined sea salt
1 egg, beaten
1 cup milk
2 Tbsp melted coconut oil (The original recipe called for butter but I have begun substituting organic extra-virgin coconut oil in all my recipes. It’s healthier, more nutrient-rich and by some metabolic magic it actually makes you lose weight.)

Preheat lightly-greased cast iron griddle over medium-low heat. Griddle is ready when small drops of water sizzle and dance and then quickly disappear.

Mix dry ingredients together in one bowl or measuring cup, and egg, milk and oil in another. Then blend all ingredients together.

Pour 1/4 cup batter for each pancake onto hot griddle. Cook 1 to 1½ minutes, turning when edges look cooked and bubbles begin to break on the surface. Continue to cook 1 to 1½ minutes or until golden brown.

These are so good.

Upcoming projects: find a gluten-free pizza dough recipe that doesn’t involve 15 obscure ingredients, and select an acceptable gluten-free pasta. Quinoa incarnations are looking very promising on the pasta front.

It’s not an allergy. It’s an adventure!