EASY BUCKWHEAT PANCAKES (that everyone will love) Making small shifts in how and when we nourish ourselves and our loved ones is a key pathway to our holistic wellbeing.
Pancakes, or crêpes, depending on the viscosity of the day, are on a semi-permanent rotation at our house, and that is never truer than on a celebratory day – like birthdays – of which seem to be endless in the SUMMER months.
Ayurvedically, we eat, or don’t eat, breakfast in relationship with our unique make up, desire, or hunger. My secret is the addition of deliciously dark buckwheat flour, which, depending on the audience, can be advertised or kept opaque, shifts the properties of pancakes to give a more nourishing component. Buckwheat is an earthy addition to a classic pancake batter and is both warming and lightening – a great KAPHA balancing combination to help us all through the astrological energy of 2024 and the mud-like feeling it is bringing us. The warmth buckwheat brings is unlike that of spices like cardamom or black pepper which are readily lit fire. Buckwheat encourages agni (metabolic fire) without creating hotness in the physical and subtle bodies (a plus point in PITTA seasons of the year and life). Like salt buckwheat activates our physical bodies’ store from within.
This easy recipe is a base to adapt to and from. I promise you will want to save, and share, and make, and make again (which I do in a jug for ease and more-often-than-not the night before – because I am brave enough to admit I am not a morning person).
High in protein, fibre, antioxidants, buckwheat is a secret helping everyone enjoy the day and not burn out before lunchtime.
I make up a batch of these and keep them airtight for easy breakfasts on busy days, serve them in a stack, cake style, with a candle for birthdays, and think about different fillings – sweet and savoury, taste combinations, or how artistically I can make a face on them with bananas, or bluest berries.
This recipe is made with untoasted buckwheat flour, milk, melted butter or ghee, and an egg. 
INGREDIENTS
1 ½ cup buckwheat flour
1 cup plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 tablespoons melted butter
2 cups milk
2 eggs
I put the butter on low to melt then add everything to a jug starting with the eggs, so that the flour doesn’t stick to the bottom edge. The milk might be a little more or less depending on how runny you like them.
I have a really great eco-glass-ground non-stick pan I cook mine in, so I don’t add any extra butter when cooking (my friend Diana taught me this!) but depending on your pan you can see. I find the buckwheat adds a lot of strength to the batter and if you wait well to turn then they are pretty robust.
I stack mine so that they soften a bit into each other, and stay warm while I make the rest of the batch.
Enjoy.