Hotcake, flapjack, griddlecake, battercake…
The light, fluffy, even puffy all-American pancake has been a coveted breakfast dish for decades, both in homes and especially in restaurants. Tall stacks featured on menus and on boxes, dripping with butter and syrup… irresistible!
Sadly, for my childhood self, such pancakes were not exactly health food. Each cake is basically a piece of white bread, enriched with additional sugar, eggs and fat. It should come as no surprise that these would not be on our breakfast table on the farm. While my grandmother was usually my processed food savior, pancakes weren’t even served on her table. Turns out this wasn’t really much of a problem, though.
Because my mother made incredibly delicious dishes that she called pancakes. Most often these were actually crepes, rich in eggs and milk with just a smidge of flour, fried up in ultra-thin cakes with crisp, lacy edges. She spread them lightly with butter, poured the briefest of syrup drizzles, and then rolled them up into cylinders on the plate. There were no complaints, no fluffy pancake envy.
Every now and again though, she would make her yeast raised buckwheat cakes. These were a bit thicker, a tad fluffier than her crepes, with a deeply nutty, earthy flavor that married perfectly with real maple syrup. In retrospect, she probably was not able to obtain buckwheat flour very easily, thus these were an occasional treat. Lucky for me buckwheat flour is easily found within a five minute drive at any number of my local grocers!
Mom’s buckwheat cakes began with a yeast starter prepared the night before, and her recipe used no flours but buckwheat. As a dedicated sourdough baker, I prepare a starter using my sourdough leaven and include a small amount of spelt flour to thicken the batter slightly. If you use sourdough on a regular basis for other baked goods, this is a great recipe to use up your leftover when feeding the starter. This is an incredibly simple and flexible recipe, which can also be prepared with yeast and is easily made gluten free. The pancakes freeze beautifully and make a very quick breakfast when thawed and heated.
In her later years, Mom lived in a retirement community. While she had meals available in the dining room, she missed her especially loved dishes; however, cooking had become a challenge for her. On one visit, she asked me if I could help her get a sourdough leaven started and then stealthily opened her small refrigerator and produced a bag of buckwheat flour. Sensing potential disaster growing in her fridge, I suggested that it might be best if I made and delivered the cakes to her, which I did for her remaining years. Yes, that’s just how addictive these buckwheat cakes can be…
While Mom served them with bacon, fresh blueberries, toasted pecans and maple syrup usually accompany mine. No matter what you choose to serve with them, these pancakes are a delicious start to the day!
Mom's Buckwheat Cakes
Ingredients
- The night before you want to make pancakes mix together:
- ½ cup sourdough leaven
- 1- cup buckwheat flour
- ¼ cup spelt or whole-wheat flour
- ¼ cup water
- ¾ cup almond milk
- Cover with saran and let sit at room temperature overnight. In the morning it will have risen and will be quite bubbly. To the starter add:
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 egg
- 2 tablespoons oil I use coconut
- 2 tablespoons honey
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
Instructions
- Allow to sit for about 5 minutes while the griddle heats to 350° F. Lightly grease, then scoop batter by scant ¼ cup full and pour onto the griddle. When the top appears to dry around the edges and bubbles appear, flip the pancakes and bake for about 30 seconds longer. Remove from griddle to serving plate.
- Makes 12-15 pancakes
- To make using yeast, substitute the following for the sourdough starter:
- ½ tsp. bread machine/instant yeast
- ½ cup warm water
- ¾ cup milk
- ½ cup spelt or whole-wheat flour
- -cup buckwheat flour
- The recipe can be made gluten free by following the yeast directions and substituting ½ cup all-purpose gluten free flour mix for the spelt or whole-wheat flour.
- Proceed as above with the “in the morning” directions.
