You can't always get what you want



I'll pick thick and fluffy pancakes over thin and dense ones any day of the week. Well except yesterday, I guess.

Before our laptop crashed and took my carefully constructed electronic cookbook with it, I had an amazing recipe for the seemingly impossible: a fluffy buckwheat pancake. Every time I've come across a new (to me) recipe since then, I've given it a go in the hopes of re-capturing that memory.

Yesterday's contestant was originally published in Gourmet back in 1993. Reading through the ingredients and directions, I had fairly low expectations. As it turns out, I was both right and wrong.

Right in that, no, it's not the fluffy buckwheat pancake of my past.
Wrong in that it's something entirely different and equally delicious.

The batter's thin, which means even the shakiest and slowest of hands can come away with perfect circles. The pancakes are slender with a nutty interior and crispy, buttery edges—the perfect vehicle for your Grade A maple syrup or Roger's Golden.

Cue the music.



Buckwheat Pancakes

1/4 cup buckwheat flour
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons cold butter, cut into bits
1 egg
1/2 cup milk

In a medium bowl, whisk the flours, baking powder, brown sugar and salt. Use a pastry blender or your fingers to work the cold butter into the dry ingredients. In a small bowl, whisk the egg and milk. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until relatively smooth. Let the batter sit and thicken for 5-10 minutes while you heat your pan.

Cook the pancakes on a lightly buttered cast iron skillet over medium heat. You'll know to flip them when bubbles begin to form on the exposed side.

Source: Adapted from Blueberry Buckwheat Pancakes at Epicurious.com, originally published in Gourmet, July 1993.

Notes: Not ready to break out my frozen stash of blueberries just yet, I skipped them this time around. I also cut the recipe in half, which made for a nice breakfast for two.

Labels: