Buckwheat was a staple in my home when I was growing up, but it was always in the form of kasha, toasted and cooked like porridge or rice and served as a side “starch”. Kasha is delicious and I’m surprised that I never ventured into other buckwheat possibilities until now.
I’m an on-the-go, savoury breakfast, kinda girl. But once in a while, especially on weekends, I crave something slow and sweet. In my search for good breakfast options I came across two magical recipes.
Chris Kresser’s Sourdough Buckwheat Pancakes are delicious, but I cheated big time making them. In fact, I’ve pretty much skipped over making them “sourdough”, missing the whole point of the recipe. Chris ferments the buckwheat in yogurt for 12 – 24 hours to promote the breakdown of phytic acid, a nutrient inhibitor found in grains (and pseudo-grains like buckwheat), but I couldn’t bring myself to discard the 2 cups of yogurt used to ferment the buckwheat. The previous version of his recipe uses a double water soak for the fermentation, but I really wanted to make use of my kefir in this recipe, so I went for something in between and came up with some delicious and fluffy pancakes, which are still very nutritious compared to the traditional stuff. They’re packed with spices and studded with pears, which you can’t see in the pictures. The topping is some pink-fleshed (cara cara) oranges and an orange-honey syrup. I love that the recipe uses whole buckwheat groats instead of refined buckwheat flour, and I’m ok with having them soaked overnight, and not necessarily fermented. Trying this recipe with sprouted buckwheat is on the list.
There’s more buckwheat for breakfast. This Raw Walnut-Buckwheat Porridge recipe is amazing. Like I said, I’ve never really been a porridge person, never got into the whole oatmeal thing, but I couldn’t resist trying this gorgeous recipe and it made its way to breakfast several times already – SO good!
I have little “ingredient” phases where I discover some new possibilities with a particular ingredient and go wild with it until I can’t look at it no more. I’m not done having fun with raw buckwheat yet, so I may get a cake or crepe recipe in here if I can manage to work it out before getting sick of buckwheat. Otherwise, stay tuned for what the next ingredient phase will bring :)
- 1 cup raw buckwheat
- 1/2 cup full fat kefir or yogurt
- 1 tsp. cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp. ginger powder
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1/4 tsp. ground cloves
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 tsp. baking soda
- 1/2 pear, cut into bite-size pieces
- coconut oil for frying
- 1 orange
- 2 Tbsp. honey
- Cover the buckwheat with plenty of water and soak overnight (or at least 4 hours)
- Prepare the topping – zest the orange, remove the peel and segment it with a sharp knife, then squeeze the remains to extract the juice.
- Set the segments aside and combine the honey with the zest and juice to make the syrup.
- To start preparing the pancakes, drain the buckwheat and rinse it well.
- In a food processor, combine the buckwheat, kefir, spices, and salt, and process until smooth.
- Add the eggs and pulse a few times, followed by the baking soda (I like to add this right before frying)
- Fold in the pear pieces.
- On medium, heat a large non-stick or cast iron skillet, and coat with coconut oil. When hot, fry the pancakes in 1/4 cup batches.
- Serve warm with oranges and syrup.
Those pancakes look amazing, and the combination of flavors sounds beautiful.
So you just used a regular dried type of cooking buckwheat groats? I would love to see if sprouted buckwheat would work too! If you try it with the sprouted kind let us know :)
Thanks Sandra! Yeah, just regular raw buckwheat groats. They’re light green/brown in colour (like in the picture), not the toasted dark brown kind. I’ll definitely report back on how they turn out with sprouted buckwheat.
Sofia! Girl these look fab! AND uncomplicated!
How much did this recipe yield for you?
I don’t like making the healthy ingredient pancakes because I always find them to be fussy or taste like flimsy or crumbly cardboard.
I once tried the banana/coconut flour combo but found those to taste like coconuts with a little grittiness. And I don’t like my pancakes tasting like coconuts, or gritty lol. Also, you need to use so many eggs just to hold it together.
I’ll try this sometime and report back to you on my results :)
Stunning pics, keep up the great work! xx
Thanks, lady! This recipe made about 8 good sized pancakes. we ate most of them for one breakfast (maybe too much haha) – so like 3-4 normal servings I guess.
I’m with you on the “healthy” pancakes. There are a few recipes that I’ve enjoyed, but for the most part they do taste like cardboard.
Let me know how it goes when u try them and if you make any cool modifications – always looking for new ways to make them :)
I am always in the mood for pancakes. I’ll have to replace the buckwheat with almond or coconut flour…but your recipe sounds delicious!
This actually looks amazing!! Do you think that I could use buckwheat flour? Because it’s all I have… :) Thanks xx
I’m not sure about directly substituting buckwheat flour for the buckwheat, since the soaked buckwheat has a lot more water content than the flour, you’d have to play around with the other ingredients to get a good pancake batter. I’d suggest taking a different buckwheat flour-based pancake recipe and adding the spices and pears to that if those are the parts you want to incorporate.
I adore pancakes and I have tried so many different varieties, but I have never made them using buckwheat groats. Cannot wait to try!
Thanks! Let me know how they turn out for you :)