Sunday 7 June 2009

Buckwheat-pear pancakes


These are substantial without being heavy, and are actually...dare I say it... fluffy. A perfect post-run brunch on a Sunday. This makes 9 small (ie, one hungry-person brunch size serving = 3 pancakes + fruit salad) or 3 huge, plate-sized (1 pancake = 1 serving) pancakes. I don't see the point in eating medium-size pancakes, but I won't stop you if that's your thing. I suspect it'd make about 6 of those.


-1.5 c buckwheat flour
-1/2 c ww spelt or wheat flour
-1/2 c muesli base (ie, rolled oats, rolled rye, flaked rice...whatever, so long as it's not "puffed" anything... just use plain rolled oats if that's what you have)
-1/2 cup soy flour (if you dont' have this, sub in more of the buckwheat or wheat, and use soy milk instead of water in the wet ingredients, but the soy flour + water works much, much much better)
-1/2 tsp guar or xanthan gum
-1/2 tsp salt
-1 tsp sugar
-1 tsp cardamom
-1 tbs baking power.

Mix dry ingredients. Add enough water to form a thick batter (2-3 cups, depending on your flours, your muesli base, etc.). Now, go take a shower and let the batter sit for about 15 mins.

Stir in
1 decent sized handfull chopped walnuts (uh... 1/3-1/2 cup)
2 smallish chopped pears (this is a perfect way to use bruised, overripe, or just plain sub-par pears)

Heat up a nonstick pan or griddle. I find the pancakes work best if you heat up the pan, then drop the heat to medium-low (I have a gas stove, which lets you change temp quickly), spray the pan with oil (these taste best if you use olive oil) and then cook them covered. To know when pancakes are ready to flip, look at them, when the top looks bubbly, they're ready to flip. Try to flip them only once, and don't fiddle with them while they're cooking, dammit. For those of you with non-vegan pancake experience, vegan pancakes (at least mine) cook a bit longer than omni pancakes, and on slightly lower heat, and do best if they're cooked covered. I've spent years figuring this out. Have fun reaping the rewards of my pancake experiments. Keep the cooked pancakes on a plate in a warm oven while you do the next batch. Cold pancakes, while wonderful as leftovers, are a bit of a disappointment in non-leftovers.

Serve with cinnamon coffee, fruit salad and maple syrup or apple/pear sauce or soy yogurt...surely you can make your own decision here.

9 comments:

Penny said...

I like the look and sound of these! I've made banana pancakes before, but never pear. That must be remedied... Were you at the Meadows Festival this weekend?

sinead said...

Kind of. I went for a run this morning as they were setting up. You may have seen me running along in my bright pink hoodie and muddy shoes, swearing under my breath at the damn cars in my meadows!

Penny said...

Ah, we were there yesterday (I've blogged about it...) We'll maybe meet up one of these days. Varda's doing another Compassionate Living Fair in July...

Jake said...

These look fantastic! I'll definitely pass the recipe along to my resident pancake-maker. I can't make pancakes myself because the "leave them alone" requirement is just more than I'm capable of. So I don't know but I'm guessing that soy flour is probably different from powdered soy milk, yes? It's okay though, I'm pretty sure the bulk place across the street has soy flour.

M said...

These sound really tasty. I don't think I've ever used guar or xanthan gum before. What does it do?

sinead said...

It works as a binder, and is particularly useful when you're making gluten-free stuff, or vegan ice cream. In this recipe, you can sub in a tbs of ground flax, or a tbs of arrowroot flour/powder, or just leave it out altogether, though then your pancakes will be a little crumblier. I use xanthan gum here because it doesn't make the pancakes heavy like flax or arrowroot can do sometimes, plus I am a lazy ass and didn't have any ground flax seeds handy and didn't feel like grinding any.

medici said...

These were great the next morning, straight from the fridge where I had stored them wrapped in a large cloth French napkin. I spread them with cherry-balsamic vinegar compote and ate them with my cheap tea. Yum!

M said...

Sinead, thanks for the information. I too am a lazy ass. ;-)

"I spread them with cherry-balsamic vinegar compote and ate them with my cheap tea."

I really shouldn't have read this without having even started to make dinner. I'm now craving cherries. And cheap tea. Heheh.

Mihl said...

These sound like the perfect food for the next weekend, Sinead!