Vegan buckwheat pancakes
Vegan buckwheat pancakes
Who doesn’t like a breakfast in bed? Sometimes, when I’m feeling generous and when I somehow manage to drag myself out of the bed early (which is very rare as my sleeping skills are legendary), I make us breakfast and bring it to bed.
There is something nice about waking up to a smell of coffee and a lovingly prepared breakfast. In a bid to encourage you to do the same for your other half, I put together a quick pancake recipe that is both vegan and gluten-free.
The vegan buckwheat pancake batter is made up of buckwheat flour, which despite its misleading name has nothing to do with wheat and it is 100% gluten free. You should be able to find one in a health store and possibly even in other shops as with so many people being intolerant to gluten these days, loads of shops carry an array of gluten-free products.
Don’t worry if it’s a mission impossible though as making your own flour from buckwheat is super easy and quick.
What you want to buy is raw buckwheat (as opposed to an already roasted one, often referred to as ‘kasha’). Have a look at my photo below – the grains are mostly pale brown with a few greenish ones thrown in. That’s what raw buckwheat looks like. The other type, kasha or kasza (it’s very popular in my homeland, Poland), looks similar but the grains are dark brown. It tastes much stronger and while it’s super healthy and suitable for other uses, it would be overpowering in pancakes.
So once you get hold of raw buckwheat, dust your coffee grinder off and grind for a few seconds until you transform it into a flour. It happens really quickly as unroasted buckwheat is fairly soft. Pancakes are one of many possible uses for raw buckwheat and I’ll be sharing some more buckwheat recipes with you soon.
This recipe is dedicated to my friend, Elie, who has recently discovered that she has several food intolerances, poor thing, and is going through a tough time at the moment. She has asked me to come up with gluten-free cupcakes, but that’s still work in progress and I am hoping to buy myself more time by giving her a recipe for a tasty gluten-free brekkie instead:).
- 1 cup / 125 g buckwheat flour*
- pinch salt
- ½ tsp gluten-free baking powder
- ½ tsp baking soda
- 2 tbsp maple syrup
- 1 tbsp lemon or lime juice
- ½ cup full fat coconut milk + ½ cup water OR 1 cup of any plant milk
- 1 heaped tbsp (ideally smooth) almond butter
- 2 tsp oil for frying (I used sunflower oil)
TOPPINGS
- maple syrup
- seasonal fruit
- chopped almonds
- In a mixing bowl, combine flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder.
- In another bowl, combine all wet ingredients: coconut milk, ½ cup water, maple syrup, lemon juice and almond butter. Whisk everything together until combined and there are no chunks of almond butter in the mixture.
- Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients stirring until you get a homogeneous mixture. Add more water (1-3 tbsp) as needed – depends on how thick your coconut milk was. If you like your pancakes thick add less water, if you prefer them thin add more.
- Heat up a frying pan on the stove, brush the pan with a bit of oil using a silicone pastry brush (you can also use an oil spray).
- Ladle 2 tablespoons of the pancake mix per pancake. Keep cooking the pancakes until lots of little bubbles form and burst. If you flip them before the bubbles burst they may end up undercooked.
- Once bubbles burst, flip pancakes gently. Fry until nicely browned on the other side and serve. Keep cooked pancakes in a warm oven while making the rest.
HERE IS MY NEWER, IMPROVED RECIPE FOR THESE: vegan buckwheat pancakes
I have not tried baking these but when it comes to thickness, you can simply make them thicker by reducing the amount of liquid in the batter. My worry is that the oven will dry them out, however, so you may want to cover them during baking. Here is my more recent recipe for these btw, which is better in my opinion. Hope this helps! Ania
PS: you may enjoy this, most recent version of my buckwheat pancakes even more. Or these ones, which I also make with buckwheat flour.
Using a cast iron type that is seasoned , adding oil.im between. Not a crazy amount however which I.domt want to.do
Any advice? Thanks
I'm glad you enjoy these. As for the sticking, it's the pan, I am pretty sure. Cast iron is a very porous material and so probably not an ideal choice for low fat frying, if you don't want to use a lot of oil a non-stick pan is a must in my experience. I use a ceramic non-stick for all my pancakes and 1/2 tsp of oil per large pancake and they never stick. Another possibility is that you are flipping them too early, before they have had a chance to seal first - that would also cause them to stick. Hope that helps! Ania
Any change to make above as muffins?
By muffins, do you mean mini cakes (muffins/cupcakes)? Possibly, but I reckon that some major changes would need to be made as muffins typically have a much airier texture than breakfast pancakes, which tend to be denser. It's not that straightforward so you might be better off just using a muffin recipe instead, like this one. Hope that helps! Ania
I tried making it today with Wholegrain Buckwheat flour. The pancakes had a very fine floury texture - very different from normal wheat pancakes. I assume because there is no gluten? I am new to veganism - so I would like to check if that's how it is supposed to be?
I had the pancakes totally undressed. They felt both dense and light at the same time (hard to describe), and I feel I could probably pull it off as trail food if I make it thick enough, and throw in some nuts and chocolate chips. Which is why I am not sure if I made them right! Would appreciate your advice! thanks!
Dawn
Yes, buckwheat flour is very different to wheat flour as it's not even technically a flour since buckwheat isn't a grain. I would not say that they normally feel 'bitsy' if that's what you mean - perhaps your flour was a bit coarse. Having said that buckwheat flour definitely has a very distinct flavour (it's very nutty) and texture and it might take getting used to. I grew up on buckwheat so it doesn't bother me at all, but I know that not everyone is keen. Hope that helps! Ania
Almond (or any nut/seed) butter is meant to add fat to the dough not eggs so you want to sub that you are welcome to add a bit of vegetable oil. You can also add mashed up banana (in fact, I do have a new recipe like that ready to be published soon), but you'll need to use your judgement to adjust the amount of liquid added to compensate for these changes. Hope that helps! Ania
It's worth a try but I don't own a waffle iron so I have not been able to test this. Ania
I'm sorry to hear that they did not work out for you. This typically happens when pancakes get flipped too early (before they have had a chance to set on one side) and/or when they pan hasn't warmed up enough before frying. I make a variation of these on a regular basis and never had any issues with the batter. Ania
we have a friend with a nut allergy. Can the almond butter be subbed for something else?
You could sub it with some coconut (or other neutral tasting) oil, tahini or seed butter. Hope that helps! Ania
From your description, I feel like maybe the oil in the pan hasn't been heated up enough before you pour the batter on and you are trying to flip them too early, which is why they break. Let the oil heat up and continue cooking them on a low-medium heat until lots of little bubbles have had a chance to form and burst (that's important) before flipping them to the other side once - burst bubbles mean that they will be booked in the middle. Hope that helps! Ania
I'm going to cut back on the sweetener and thin them out a bit to make them usable as a wrap.