Soaked Gluten-Free Buckwheat Pancakes

43 Comments

Thankfully no one in our home has officially been diagnosed with a gluten sensitivity. We do, however, try to limit our wheat intake. Doing so just makes us feel better. And I am finding more and more people who notice the same thing.

So I developed this soaked buckwheat pancake recipe. Buckwheat is a gluten-free pseudocereal rich in iron, zinc, and selenium. It has a nutty flavor stronger than that of wheat. For that reason it stands up well to homemade jam and deeply flavored maple syrup or raw honey. Not to mention that generous pat of grass-fed butter on top.


{freshly ground buckwheat flour}

Buckwheat has a short growing season and is known to grow fairly well in North America and is commonly used as a cover crop. I always like to experiment with foods that are unfamiliar to us and yet readily grow in our area. Who knows, maybe we’ll grow our own crop of buckwheat someday.

I also used this recipe as a way to use up sour milk ala this article. We aren’t fans of drinking our raw milk when it is past it’s prime, but who wants to waste it? This recipe uses up a great deal of this precious commodity… and makes a whole lot of pancakes.


{after mixing with sour milk}

Soaked Buckwheat Pancakes

Recipe Notes: The soaking step in this recipe helps to neutralize the phytic acid in the grain, making them more digestible and the nutrients more available. Culinarily speaking, though, the soaking process just makes for a lighter, tastier pancake. In testing this recipe I have used freshly ground toasted buckwheat for my flour option, though any buckwheat flour should work. Just make sure it is 100% buckwheat. Finally, this recipe makes a lot of pancakes which store well in the refrigerator for days and will freeze well for months.

Ingredients

  • 3 cups buckwheat flour
  • 3 cups soured raw milk or cultured buttermilk
  • 3 eggs, lightly beaten
  • 3/4 tsp fine grained sea salt
  • 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 2 tablespoons melted butter
  • coconut oil or butter for frying

Directions

  1. 12-24 hours before you plan to serve the pancakes begin the soaking process. Mix buckwheat flour and sour milk or buttermilk until well combined (see above photo). Cover and place in a warm place (next to oven, on top of refrigerator) for 12-24 hours. The longer the better.
  2. In the morning start preheating your pan over medium-low heat.
  3. While that is heating mix all other ingredients into buckwheat flour/milk mixture. At this point it may be very bubbly, like a sourdough starter. Stir it down a bit, just to take a little air out of the batter. If you don’t do this your pancakes will literally have holes all the way through them.
  4. Add coconut oil or butter to your prehated pan. Ladle 1/4 cup of batter into pan for each pancake. Cook for 3-5 minutes, or until bubbles pop and the top dries out just a bit. Flip and cook for 2 more minutes on the other side, or until nicely browned.
  5. Serve with plenty of grass-fed butter or ghee (see sources) and homemade jam, syrup, molasses, molasses-honey spread, or raw honey.

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43 Comments

  1. Those look wonderful. I’ve been making soaked blender-batter oatmeal pancakes lately, but even soaked oatmeal still makes my tummy rumble a little. Plus the extra iron in buckwheat would be great for this anemic pregnant mama!

    Is buckwheat flour (no grain mill here yet) readily available in health food stores, aka Whole Foods?

    1. Emily – Yes, I believe so. I have seen it in the Arrowhead Mills brand or Bob’s Red Mill.

    1. Melissa – Exchange the milk for a 50-50 mixture of water & coconut milk with a few tablespoons of lemon juice or vinegar.

  3. I love buckwheat pancakes. I haven’t made a soaked pancake recipe yet, and will certainly try this. I like making a big batch of pancakes and freezing the rest between sheets of parchment paper so they don’t stick to each other.

  4. Shannon, this recipe looks wonderful. I’ve seen a packet mix for buckwheat pancakes that had me intrigued but would much prefer to make them from scratch. Thanks for your recipe and for the tip on soaking.

    Joe

  6. Thanks so much for this recipe – this one looks so far better than others I’ve seen and not wanted to even try. Will make these for my husband soon.

  7. I had some raw milk that was just starting to turn so I made these for breakfast – they were absolutely yum! I despise heavy pancakes and these were light but still had a full flavor and body. I topped them with some kerrygold butter and homemade lemon curd – yum! Thanks for the recipe – I normally make wheat based sourdough pancakes but these are definetly going into the rotation.

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  9. You must have gotten into my subconsciousness. 🙂 I randomly picked up some buckwheat yesterday cause I thought maybe I’d try and make some pancakes! Must have seen it in my reader last week without really ‘reading’ it!

  10. I’m cooking up my first batch of these right now and they are great!! I added about 2 TBSP of maple syrup to the batter. They are nice and fluffy and don’t have that strange buckwheat flavor at all. Next time I might try using part quinoa flour, though. Has anyone tried that?

  11. These are the MOST amazing pancakes I have EVER eaten! Thank you so much for this recipe! I am going to make them for everyone I know, every breakfast chance I get. Thank you!

  13. Do you think this recipe would still work by soaking the whole groats overnight? I have whole groats and no grain grinder, but I’m wondering if the long soaking would cause them to break down a bit. Or perhaps a run in the food processor or blender after the soak might work. Anyway, I’ll give it a try since I have some sour raw milk to use up.

    1. Melanie – I would do the recipe with the whole groats and grind them with the liquid before soaking. This will break it down better than soaking the whole groats before grinding.

  14. We love buckwheat pancakes. Before healing my body with the SCD diet, I was sensitive to eggs, dairy, and gluten. I’d soak buckwheat flour with water and a little vinegar overnight and add baking powder in the morning. We later found soaking in kefir or sour milk overnight eliminated the strange “metallic” taste from the flour. Now I have a grain mill and grind it fresh. No more strange metallic taste. Maybe we’ll make buckwheat pancakes tomorrow!

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  16. Could this be made with raw milk that’s not soured yet?
    Is toasting the buckwheat necessary?
    Thanks!

    1. Michelle – You could use any type of milk, but one that is soured or acidic from a culture is a bit more helpful in neutralizing phytic acid. The toasting element is simply there because the type of buckwheat I had on hand was already toasted, so I’m not sure it’s necessary.

  18. This is exactly the recipe I was looking for. I liked how they turned out, but they were WAY darker. The batter was almost a dark blue and the cakes the same. Is it because I used pre-ground (Bob’s)?

  19. I was just wondering. Won’t the phytic acids be in the liquid portion and since you can’t rinse the flour anymore, then we’ll be essentially eating the bad stuff too right? I’m confused. Sorry if this sounds like a weird question. LOL

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  21. I LOVE the idea of healthy pancakes & I just happen to have all of the ingredients! One question though…I just combined 2 cups of Bob’s Red Mill brand whole grain buckwheat flour (pre ground) & 2 cups of cultured buttermilk, but my mixture is super thick! Your mixture in the picture above looks pretty runny. Did I already do something wrong or should be very thick?!?! I’m going to let it sit out for just under 24 hours before cooking with it. Thanks for any help!

    1. Arti – I would wait it out and try your thicker batter. Your flour may just be a touch different than mine.

  22. yum. I soaked some “light buckwheat flour” (Dakota Prairie) in a mix of yogurt and water since I didn’t have soured milk but the result was still a sourdough-tasting buckwheat waffle. om nom nom.

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  25. I am wondering if almond milk would work instead of coconut milk with lemon juice ???

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  27. I can’t tell you how excited I am to have found this recipe! We recently went gluten free and miss our sourdough pancakes. I’ve been making buckwheat pancakes but for some reason didn’t think about soaking the flour, maybe since it’s actually a grass and not related to wheat at all I didn’t think there’d be phytic acid in it. Can’t wait to try it, in fact, I’m braving a snowstorm to go get more buckwheat flour!

  28. I made these today exactly as directed. I can’t believe I have waited this long to try buckwheat-they taste delicious. I bought the whole grains and blended them in my Blendtec. I then added my 3 cups of buttermilk (leftover from making butter a few months back) and let it soak overnight (I did add a little water in the morning since the batter looked too dry). The pancakes cooked up beautifully. They were not sour as I expected they would be. Also, I’m sugar free, so I made some “syrup” from soaked Chia seeds, berries, stevia, coconut oil and maple syrup extract. I found the berry flavor was not the “Perfect” (but still great) Syrup for these pancakes. I found these pancakes had a little chocolate flavor to them so next time I will make a carob flavored syrup. I do not have allergies to gluten but am doing a diet therapy for a neurological disorder which limits most all grains. With that said, I give these pancakes an A- in flavor/texture compared to the wheat ones I am more accustom to. With such delicious buckwheat pancakes, I will never go back to wheat pancakes again. TRY THIS RECIPE!!!

  31. hi, the recipe sounds so exciting.
    i was wondering if i could soak the buckwheat in whey instead?
    or would it be too runny? can’t wait to try it!

  32. Yum! If I wanted to sub cashew milk or almond milk would that work okay?

  34. Thanks for the lovely recipe. I would like to make this. I am wondering, how did you toast the buckwheat? Did you toast the whole groats before grinding the flour? In the oven? For how long approximately? Thanks again!

  35. Thanks for the recipe

    question: you typed 1 1/2 tsp baking soda?
    i am not clear on that!?
    how much exactly ?
    1/2 tsp?

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