buckwheat pancakes made with love

When I first eliminated gluten, one of the first things I made was buckwheat pancakes. "Mmmm!" I commented to Jon. "Who needs gluten! These are great."

I was lying. They were terrible.

I made them three times and then gave up. I blamed buckwheat. "I hate buckwheat!" I thought to myself. I bought some bagged mix which made far better pancakes but was insanely expensive. Eventually, I abandoned pancakes altogether. 

That was over a year ago. This spring, my mother found some all-purpose gluten free flour from 1-2-3 Gluten Free (very good stuff: I highly recommend it if you're looking for something prepared) and I started using it to make pancakes the way I always had using wheat flour: by eyeballing. It worked and we had lots of glorious, fluffy, gluten free pancakes. After I ran out of that flour, I was feeling more comfortable with making my own flour mixes, and did so using primarily rice flour but incorporating some chickpea, which seemed to off-set the grittiness of the rice. It worked fairly well. A while later I learned about amaranth flour and tried incorporating it: fantastic! Big fan of amaranth flour.

Then last week, it happened. It was 7:30am, the girls were hungry...and we had no rice flour. At all. And only about a tablespoon of amaranth. Disaster.

But we had buckwheat. Buckwheat, which I had summarily blamed for the terrible pancakes of a year ago. "Yecch," I thought to myself, "these are going to be awful. Maybe the girls will eat them. I'll just go hungry until lunch time."

So I started making my standard flour mixture, using buckwheat in place of the rice and amaranth flours. I got the batter ready - dark, and brown and bubbly - and started frying them up.

They were like little chocolatey-scented clouds of awesome.

They cooked up beautifully. They smelled amazing. I started to feel very optimistic. I served them up to the girls - and to myself, so great was my optimism - and dug in.

Oh. 

Oh my.

I am in love with buckwheat pancakes. They are unbelievably good. They do taste strongly of buckwheat, but it's a wonderful flavour, rich and homey and almost chocolatey and perfect for a wholesome, warming breakfast. Light and fluffy and spongy and springy. Perfection.

It turns out that those terrible pancakes were not buckwheat's fault, but just one really terrible recipe. But now I have my recipe. And you do, too.

Buckwheat Pancakes

1C less 2Tbsp buckwheat flour

2 Tbsp tapioca starch

1//4 tsp xanthan gum

1tsp baking powder

2 Tbsp sugar

dash of salt

2 medium-large eggs or 3 small eggs

1C milk

1/4C melted butter

1Tbsp lemon juice or apple cider vinegar

1. Combine dry ingredients well in a medium-sized bowl. GF ingredients have a tendency to clump, so be meticulous in your stirring or better yet, sift them together. 

2. While combining dry ingredients, melt your butter. I melt the butter in the frying pan I'll use to cook the pancakes, which serves to grease the pan as well.

3. Whisk together eggs, milk, melted butter and lemon juice.

4. Using a spatula, stir dry ingredients into wet. Combine well. Allow it to sit for at least a minute or two before pouring your first pancake.

5. Fry over low to medium heat until the edges of the pancake begin to dry slightly and bubbles are bursting across the surface of the pancake. Flip and cook another few minutes until both sides are golden brown.

6. Serve with maple syrup. Try not to eat until you explode.

Bon appétit, lovelies!