Buckwheat Pikelets

Buckwheat Pikelets

Buckwheat pikelets don't have to taste 'like sand'

When fellow blogger and Twitter friend, Erin (aka The Food Mentalist) tweeted that buckwheat pancakes 'taste like sand', I responded that I would like to share my recipe with her and Erin's reponse was 'Yes please'. So, Erin, this one is for you. 

One of the quick and easy favourites in my household is pikelets (a.k.a. pancakes or hotcakes) prepared with buckwheat and arrowroot flours. I developed this recipe over a decade ago, when I embarked on a grain free diet challenge for health reasons. The combination of ingredients results in perfectly light and fluffy pikelets.

A relatively new crop to Australia, and not a true cereal, buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum), is high in fibre, minerals, vitamins and essential amino acids. The fruit of the plant is dried and ground into a greyish, gluten-free flour. Buckwheat flour is perhaps best known for its use in Russian blinis and Japanese soba noodles. 

Arrowroot is a fine, white starchy powder, quite tasteless, made from the root of a tropical plant. Interestingly, according to Larousse, it is so named because of the therapeutic qualities attributed to it by the American Indians in the treatment of arrow wounds! In modern kitchens, it is used mainly as a thickener of sauces and syrups. 

These little pikelets are delicious served with berry fruits and maple syrup (preferably minus butter). Leftover pikelets can be covered, refrigerated and briefly refreshed in the microwave the next morning. Enjoy.

BUCKWHEAT PIKELETS
1/2 cup buckwheat flour
1/2 cup arrowroot
1/4-1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/4-1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 cup buttermilk or soured milk*
1 egg, lightly whisked
1 teaspoon raw sugar

Combine the flour, arrowroots, sugar and raising agents with the egg and milk. Whisk until the batter is smooth. Heat a griddle or frypan and spray very lightly with oil. Pour spoonfuls of the mixture onto the pan and brown both sides, turning once bubbles appear in the surface. Serve immediately. Serves 2-4, depending on how hungry you feel. Makes about 10 pancakes or pikelets.

* To sour the milk, add a few drops of lemon juice. Go easy on the amount of bicarb and cream of tartar, otherwise you will end up with soapy tasting pikelets. The combination of bicarb, cream of tartar and buttermilk or soured milk aids in producing a light as air result.

Just a few simple ingredients prepared and you are ready to make your pikelets

Buckwheat flour, arrowroot, a little raw sugar, bicarb, cream of tartar, a whisked egg and soured milk or buttermilk

A few drops of lemon juice will sour the milk if you don't have buttermilk

Combine the buckwheat and arrowroot with the raising agents

Whisk the ingredients together until the batter is smooth

Pour spoonfuls of the mixture onto a heated griddle or frypan, turn once bubbles appear

This quantity will make about ten little pikelets or hotcakes

Delicious, light and fluffy... and gluten free!