It’s a dreary, rainy Thursday morning, so I can safely assume that you’re probably thinking about the weekend, including the food you want to make.
Am I right or am I right?
Enter pancakes.
Pancakes are quite possibly one of the easiest things to prepare on a weekend. Any food that can be prepared successfully while half asleep is a winner in my books. I made these a couple weekends ago when I was feeling bored of my usual pancakes and I’ve since made 4 batches. They are not only gluten-free and vegan, but they hold together perfectly and taste incredible, even plain.
I recommend making a double batch and wrapping up the leftovers for snacks. Have you ever had a pancake burrito? Just spread a bit of jam and nut butter onto the pancake and roll it up. Instant pancake burrito on the go! Or you can sandwich two together and make a pancake sandwich.
Pancakes are much easier than spilling a bag of espresso beans while making Homemade Bailey’s. The worst part of it was I hadn’t even opened the Jameson yet, so I have no excuse.
Thankfully, Sketchie managed to knock about 476 beans under the fridge, saving me a lot of clean up time.
He’s great like that.
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Vegan and Gluten-Free Vanilla Blueberry Buckwheat Pancakes
Yield
Six 4 inch pancakes
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
Light, fluffy, with chunks of banana and juicy blueberries, these pancakes taste so good they can be enjoyed plain. Be sure to use raw buckwheat groats (and not toasted buckwheat/Kasha) as the raw buckwheat has a much more mild and pleasant flavour. I buy my buckwheat groats from Upaya Naturals. I tried subbing the rice flour for oat flour and the pancakes completely stuck to the pan, so I would advise against that substitution. As always, if you’d like the pancakes strictly gluten-free, be sure to check all labels before using.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup raw buckwheat groats (not kasha), ground into a flour
- 1/4 cup brown rice flour
- 1 tbsp cornstarch
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 3/4 cup + 2 tbsp almond milk
- 2 tbsp pure maple syrup (or other liquid sweetener)
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1 medium ripe banana, diced
- 1 vanilla bean, scraped (optional)
- 1/2 cup blueberries (optional)
Directions
- Preheat a large non-stick skillet over medium heat.
- In a blender, blend the buckwheat groats on high speed until a fine flour forms. Place into a large bowl. Now whisk in the rest of the dry ingredients (rice flour, cornstarch, baking powder).
- Pour in the almond milk, maple syrup, and vanilla extract. Whisk the batter until no clumps remain.
- Fold in the diced banana and scraped vanilla bean. If using fresh blueberries, mix them in now.
- Lightly grease skillet. Scoop 1/4 cup of batter onto the preheated skillet. If using frozen blueberries, sprinkle on a heaping tablespoon of blueberries. Cook until many bubbles appear and then flip and cook for another couple minutes. Repeat for the other pancakes.
Tip:
Note: If using frozen blueberries, pour batter onto skillet first and then top with blueberries to prevent bleeding. I also tried subbing the rice flour for oat flour and the pancakes completely stuck to the pan, so I would advise against that substitution.
As I mentioned these hold together very well, especially considering they are vegan and gluten-free. You know they are ready to flip, when a lot of bubbles start appearing.
A couple pancake tricks:
1) If you are using frozen blueberries like I was, sprinkle the blueberries directly onto the pancakes (like above) rather than mixing into the batter. This will prevent bleeding.
2) The best pancake tip I ever learned is to preheat the skillet completely before adding on the pancake batter. You know how people say the first pancake never turns out? Well, this is usually because it’s not preheated enough. The first thing I do is turn on the burner to medium heat and preheat my skillet, before I even start prepping the ingredients. Not sure it’s ready? Drop a tiny bit of water on it. When it sizzles, it’s ready.
Before you know it, you’ll have incredibly wholesome pancakes you can feel good about eating. Just be sure to make leftovers so you can whip up those pancake burritos for a yummy snack.
Set your clock forward on Saturday night.
Sleep late.
Make these pancakes.
Enjoy!
SO GOOD. Just made them after craving gf pancakes. Was not disappointed! I initially was worried about the taste of buckwheat but I loved it. Texture of the batter was amazing and tasted great too. Highly recommend this recipe. Oh and I used a gf flour blend I already had and it worked fine.
Hey Francesca, Oh so glad you tried these out! I too love the raw buckwheat flavour. Happy New Year!
Been making these for years. I made these recently and used teff flour instead. Had to increase teff flour to about 3/4 cup.
I’m a little late in the game but I don’t think it’s ever too late for pancakes. Love these and I love that they freeze well. I’m into a buckwheat kick lately. You don’t happen to have any other recipes that have buckwheat groats/flour (that isn’t porridge) in it do you? Like maybe muffins? I love your flourless mini breakfast muffins too. I can’t stop eating them. Thank you for all the recipes!
Thank you so much Mich! :) To find my buckwheat recipes, you can search “buckwheat” in the search bar and some should come up. There is a great overnight buckwheat porridge I love.
I have a food sensitivity to bananas. Do you think i could replace the banana in the recipe with maybe 1/2 cup of applesauce??
Hi Carla, Hmm good question! I haven’t tried it before so I’m not sure. If you try anything would you be able to let me know how it goes? It’s important to use a non stick pan with this recipe too.
These turned out to be easy and delicious! I did make a few substitutions: white rice flour instead of brown rice flour (since that’s what I had on hand), 3/4 c. organic buckwheat flour in place grinding the 1/2 c. of groats, potato starch in place of corn starch, and my homemade cashew milk instead of almond milk (since that’s what I had on hand). I also added a pinch of salt. No problems with sticking! My husband and I devoured all of the pancakes so next time I will have to double the recipe if I want to freeze some!!
Thanks for sharing Collette! :)
Thank you for yet ANOTHER great recipe! We tried a few grain-free subs:
Cassava for rice flour
ground flax for cornstarch
1/4t baking soda+lemon juice
Next batch will omit flax (cassava is so stretchy) and make more (1-1/3 buckwheat groat flour | 1/2c cassava | 1/2t soda and 2T+ lemon). Thank you for your wonderful work Angela!!! :)
I have made these pancakes dozens of times and they are my favorite! I’ve even adapted them for the top 12 elimination diet I went on for my son (sorghum flour for the rice, tapioca for the cornstarch, light coconut milk or hemp milk for the almond milk (the quantity of liquid is a bit different, so add to desired thickness)). I get lazy and don’t always feel like grinding buckwheat groats, but bulk barn has light buckwheat flour and 1/2c groats is ~95g of flour. This recipe triples and freezes/ reheats in toaster really well. I’d give them 10/5 stars if I could!