Buckwheat Crepes and Pancakes

I made my first batch of buckwheat blinis to Laura’s recipe (1/8th of it made 8 blinis) today using a recently acquired French blue steel blini pan. It’s almost as heavy as a cast iron pan and with similar properties. They turned out a treat, even though it was the first time I’d used the pan, and was experimenting with heat, pouring technique, and quantity of fat (lard).

New Approach To Buckwheat Crepes

I've just been reading Stephan Guyenet's blog and he's got a different approach to doing buckwheat crepes. Instead of using buckwheat flour he soaks/ferments the whole groats for 9-24 hours and then blends them with water to get the batter. Why do this? To deactivate phytates in the buckwheat.

[quote author=http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2010/07/real-food-xi-sourdough-buckwheat-crepes.html]
However, like all seeds (including grains and nuts), buckwheat is rich in phytic acid. Phyic acid complexes with certain minerals, preventing their absorption by the human digestive tract. This is one of the reasons why traditional cultures prepare their grains carefully (3). During soaking, and particularly fermentation of raw batters, an enzyme called phytase goes to work breaking down the phytic acid. Not all seeds are endowed with enough phytase to break down phytic acid in a short period of time. Buckwheat contains a lot of phytase, and consequently fermented buckwheat batters contain very little phytic acid (4, 5). It's also high in astringent tannins, but thorough soaking in a large volume of water removes them.[/quote]

I had previously been under the impression that buckwheat, quinoa, millet and amaranth had little or no phytic acid negating the need to soak them, but it appears this may not be the case. It might be worthwhile, particularly if eating a lot of the buckwheat crepes/pancakes/blinis, to take up this method as an alternative.

Another interesting idea from this blog is to add a little bit of brown rice soaking water to the buckwheat while it's soaking. Apparently, reserving some of the soaking liquid from every batch of brown rice that you're soaking consecutively concentrates the phytase enzymes making the soaking even more efficient. According to Guyenet, eventually you'll be deactivating 96% of the phytates within 24 hours. See http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2009/04/new-way-to-soak-brown-rice.html

Re: New Approach To Buckwheat Crepes

dugdeep said:

I've just been reading Stephan Guyenet's blog and he's got a different approach to doing buckwheat crepes. Instead of using buckwheat flour he soaks/ferments the whole groats for 9-24 hours and then blends them with water to get the batter. Why do this? To deactivate phytates in the buckwheat.

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Interesting technique. I may have to try this. Thanks dugdeep! :)

I have a question: How do you make buckwheat blinis softer? Do you just add more buckwheat flour? (that didn't really work for me, but perhaps I should've added more)

Oxajil said:

I have a question: How do you make buckwheat blinis softer? Do you just add more buckwheat flour? (that didn't really work for me, but perhaps I should've added more)

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I usually add tapioca flour to my pancakes. It makes them chewy or gummy. Maybe try a 3:1 ratio buckwheat to tapioca, or 2:1. I've also doubled the baking powder, but you run the risk of it tasting off because of the amount of bicarbonate. It makes it a little fluffier and the holes for the bubbles get bigger. FWIW.

You can make them softer by using less fat to cook them. If the iron pan is well seasoned, a very thin film of fat will do. Also, thicker batter with a bit more baking powder.

I've tried the tapioca flour as a binder, but it just makes breads that are too heavy as far as I can see.

Yesterday I made my first attempt at making buckwheat muffins. I have been on the elimination diet for about 3 weeks now I feel better than I have in YEARS! So I decided that I wanted to try buckwheat for the first time. I decided to go with the muffins because I don't have a cast iron pan to do pancakes or crepes. Well I must have drizzled way too much grapeseed oil because thats all I could taste when they were done.

I am going to try it again today. This seems to happen with me when I try something new - the first time I usually do something wrong but it goes well the second time!

I am the only one that is going to eat them so I was trying to make just a small batch. Can't wait til I get it right!!!

Angela

I just want to inform anyone who doesn't know that Bob's Red Mill buckwheat flour isn't gluten free. I recently discovered this, thinking that it was, because their groats are indeed gluten free. But I was looking on their website and they just added reviews and people were complaining about this. And on the package it does say its produced in a wheat facility.

But the funny thing is that I've been using this flour for many months now, it was probably the first one I got when I heard about the pancakes. And I've been on the Ultra Simple Diet for over 2 months now and I didn't notice anything when I introduced the pancakes. I used quite a bit of it during the diet too, making some buckwheat loaves.

I don't know if I should give it away or use it, I only have one bag left. Arrowhead Mills buckwheat flour is gluten free though, I asked them in an e-mail.

Here is my slightly refined recipe for buckwheat blinis, pancakes, breads:

4 cups water
1/2 cup grapeseed oil
2 tsp baking powder
1.5 tsp salt
2 tsp D-ribose or raw sugar
Mix that together until you are sure the sugar has dissolved.
Then add 3 cups of BW flour and stir until smooth. If it is too thick, add a little more water.

Spoon onto a very hot cast iron pan that has a generous film of fat (lard, duck fat). The pan should be almost smoking. Cook on medium heat until the edges are brown and flip over to cook the other side.

Lately, I've been putting slices of banana on them as soon as I pour the batter in the pan. Then, when I flip them over, the bananas caramelize. I sprinkle a little xylitol and cinnamon on and it is wonderful!

Laura said:

Here is my slightly refined recipe for buckwheat blinis, pancakes, breads:

4 cups water
1/2 cup grapeseed oil
2 tsp baking powder
1.5 tsp salt
2 tsp D-ribose or raw sugar
Mix that together until you are sure the sugar has dissolved.
Then add 3 cups of BW flour and stir until smooth. If it is too thick, add a little more water.

Spoon onto a very hot cast iron pan that has a generous film of fat (lard, duck fat). The pan should be almost smoking. Cook on medium heat until the edges are brown and flip over to cook the other side.

Lately, I've been putting slices of banana on them as soon as I pour the batter in the pan. Then, when I flip them over, the bananas caramelize. I sprinkle a little xylitol and cinnamon on and it is wonderful!

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OMG Laura, when you find the time, you should do a cooking BOOK!!! Or continue with your on line recipes, there where amazing!
:D

EDU

Laura said:

Here is my slightly refined recipe for buckwheat blinis, pancakes, breads:

4 cups water
1/2 cup grapeseed oil
2 tsp baking powder
1.5 tsp salt
2 tsp D-ribose or raw sugar
Mix that together until you are sure the sugar has dissolved.
Then add 3 cups of BW flour and stir until smooth. If it is too thick, add a little more water.

Spoon onto a very hot cast iron pan that has a generous film of fat (lard, duck fat). The pan should be almost smoking. Cook on medium heat until the edges are brown and flip over to cook the other side.

Lately, I've been putting slices of banana on them as soon as I pour the batter in the pan. Then, when I flip them over, the bananas caramelize. I sprinkle a little xylitol and cinnamon on and it is wonderful!

Click to expand...

Well, the lard and/or duct fat ain't happenin' round here so what kind of oil can I substitute to cook them in??

Mrs. Peel said:

Laura said:

Here is my slightly refined recipe for buckwheat blinis, pancakes, breads:

4 cups water
1/2 cup grapeseed oil
2 tsp baking powder
1.5 tsp salt
2 tsp D-ribose or raw sugar
Mix that together until you are sure the sugar has dissolved.
Then add 3 cups of BW flour and stir until smooth. If it is too thick, add a little more water.

Spoon onto a very hot cast iron pan that has a generous film of fat (lard, duck fat). The pan should be almost smoking. Cook on medium heat until the edges are brown and flip over to cook the other side.

Lately, I've been putting slices of banana on them as soon as I pour the batter in the pan. Then, when I flip them over, the bananas caramelize. I sprinkle a little xylitol and cinnamon on and it is wonderful!

Click to expand...

Well, the lard and/or duct fat ain't happenin' round here so what kind of oil can I substitute to cook them in??

Click to expand...

Yeah I don't use the duck fat either, I insteed use coconut oil!

EDU

I use local butter (organic, not pasturized, grass fed) which I test okay for, or ghee.

Mrs. Peel said:

Well, the lard and/or duct fat ain't happenin' round here so what kind of oil can I substitute to cook them in??

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Olive oil is another option. :)

Cool idea with the bananas. Caramelized bananas are nice and gooey. I haven't made pancakes in a while, so maybe next time I do I will try this. Thank you for the update.