Buckwheat breakfast bowl

Our trip to Brattleboro naturally featured a trip to the Coop (best food shop ever)! I tried to be restrained (because of our imminent big move), and just picked up a few favourites (nori cashews, sesame sticks), plus a few random things to make me proud of remembering to bring reusable containers (roasted tahini butter; jasmine kombucha)... and a few things I couldn't resist (raspberry dust chocolate, figs, pecans). It made me realise I still had some stuff left from our last trip there around Easter, and resolve to use that stuff when I got back...

The most notable was raw buckwheat groats. I'd been interested in them but didn't really know what to do with them. I'd sprouted a few, and they were good, with a gentle aroma reminding me of buckwheat honey. But that was about as far as I'd got. I made the amazing seed+nut bread yesterday, and spotted a raw buckwheat porridge recipe on the same blog: tipping point on a recipe I'd seen one too many times - so this time I should make it...

(makes about 3 servings; start the night before)

1 cup raw buckwheat groats
1 tbsp cider vinegar
warm water
1 banana
almond milk
hemp seeds
buckwheat honey
blueberries
toasted flaked almonds
raisins
cinnamon

The night before you want to eat buckwheat for breakfast, put the buckwheat groats in a container with the vinegar and plenty of warm water. Let soak overnight. In the morning, they will be soft enough to nibble. Drain and rinse them. If you want to use them for salad etc just stop here.

To make into a buckwheat bowl (somewhere in between porridge and an acai bowl?), put the rinsed groats into a blender cup and add the banana, about 1/2 cup almond milk and a good sprinkle of hemp seeds, and blend. It should end up about the consistency of yoghurt (except not as smooth, unless the blender is high-speed).

To serve, transfer to bowls and drizzle with buckwheat honey (or other honey, or maple syrup, or no additional sweetener... I had  buckwheat honey though and the combination seemed too serendipitous to pass up). Sprinkle with blueberries (mine were frozen), almonds, raisins and cinnamon. Mix up and eat.


I was amazed by how good this was, and by how much of it I managed to eat!

When I asked S if he wanted to try buckwheat breakfast he was not excited, but he's the kind of chap who'll always give something a go. He did, and he liked it enough to request it for breakfast the next day too (this time mixed with cupuaçu, so even more like an açaí bowl hybrid)! Only downside is, we've now worked our way though that stash of buckwheat groats, so unless another trip to Brattleboro ensues, there'll be no more of this for a while.

Buckwheat pancakes

New Year's Day breakfast. Had been thinking about grinding up some buckwheat to make flour / wanted to make something slightly fancy to start off the year... Used this recipe.

1 cup buckwheat flour
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
pinch of salt
1¼ cups fake milk mixed with 1 tbsp cider vinegar
1 egg
½ tsp vanilla essence
coconut oil (or other veg oil) for frying
banana, maple syrup, sour cherries in simple syrup, shredded marzipan

Mix buckwheat flour, sugar, baking powder, bicarb and salt in a bowl. In a measuring jug, beat together milk mixture, egg and vanilla. Add wet to dry, mix lightly and let sit for five minutes. Heat 1-2 tsp of oil in a frying pan then add a few tbsp of mixture and encourage into a pancake shape. Cook for a few minutes, until browned, on each side. Flip carefully: they are quite delicate.


We ate these with preserved sour cherries (from LUrC preserve swap - had been saving for a special occasion), maple syrup, sliced banana and, for the most decadent ones, shredded marzipan.

Gluten-free baking

Photo by Alvin

My friends A and K asked me to teach them what I knew about GF baking. I was unsure at first: unconvinced that I knew any more about it than they did. But they persuaded me that even what little I knew would be helpful to them, and I figured it would be fun whatever happened - I like hanging out and drinking tea and cooking, and they are good company. So we got together for a day of GF baking.

I think the main thing I have figured out about GF baking is that you often need a combination of flours - something like glutinous rice flour or tapioca flour or cornstarch or potato starch to stick it together, and then a combination to give good texture: rice flour alone is light but tastes dusty, gram flour is heavy and its taste is overpowering (although lends a pleasant eggy flavour when used in small quantities), oat flour I like, others such as quinoa or millet flour are different again, and some combination (varied depending on the taste you are looking for / what goes with the other stuff in the mix) is what will make it good. Getting a good rise is doubly challenging when doing vegan+GF (no eggs, no gluten).

I thought of three things:

1) Oat-sunflower-raisin biscuits
(I knew these would work (and they did), also thought they were interesting because of the lack of flour / most of the fat coming from the nut/seed butter)

2) Savoury corn muffins
Wanted to do a basic muffin type thing. A mentioned he got coarse cornmeal from his CSA and this idea suggested itself - though it would be nice to do something simple and savoury as most of the GF things I have baked are sweet... I also recently noticed that Trader Joe's started doing a GF flour blend (brown rice flour, potato starch, white rice flour and something else), so thought it would be fun to try something with that. This is based on my favourite basic cornbread recipe, made in a muffin form and with lots of additions.

2 tbsp ground linseed mixed with ~5 tbsp boiling water
1 TJ’s GF flour mix (see above)
½ tsp xanthan gum
1 cup cornmeal
4 tsp baking powder
¾ tsp salt
2 tsp paprika (note, spice combination is very flexible; adding dried chili or finely chopped fresh chili would also be good)
1 tsp sumac
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1-2 tbsp sesame seeds, toasted
2 tbsp honey (or sugar)
1 cup fake milk + 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
¼ cup oil (used grapeseed, any oil would work here really - even stronger flavoured ones - as these are savoury)
Handful sweetcorn kernels, defrosted
~4 spring onions, cleaned, trimmed and chopped
2 tbsp chopped fresh coriander

Heat oven to 425F*. Prepare muffin cups by lining with paper cases. Mix flour, cornmeal, xanthan gum, baking powder, salt, dry spices and seeds (and sugar if using) in a bowl. Add vinegar to the milk, then mix this with the linseed mixture, oil and honey (if using). Add the sweetcorn, coriander and spring onions to the dry ingredients and toss. Add the wet ingredients to the dry, and mix until just combined. Bake for 20-25 min.

These came out well: pleasant, savoury, corny taste, with a robust texture from the cornmeal and a slight sweetness from the kernels. Quite dense, but held together well and rose enough to give a nice shape. *Could perhaps try a slightly lower temperature next time: they browned up on top quite quickly (not a problem really).


3) Little nutty cakes (an educational semi-disaster)
I'd seen these a while ago, and thought they sounded interesting: liked the nuts and the olive oil. But noticed the reliance on eggs and thought maybe they'd be too difficult to adapt. For some reason I decided it would be a good idea to try anyway - I think partly because I got into the idea of mixing nut flour and buckwheat flour.

3 tbsp linseed mixed with 7.5 tbsp boiling water (or 3 eggs)
1 cup (200g) sugar
2/3 cup (90g / 3 ¼ oz) ground almonds (or hazelnuts)
1 ½ cups flour – sub ¾ cup oat flour plus ¾ cup buckwheat flour plus ½ tsp xanthan gum
1 tbsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
¾ cup plus 2 tbsp (200 ml) mixture of extra virgin olive oil and grapeseed oil
About ¼ cup (25g) mixed chopped untoasted nuts for sprinkling (used hazelnuts)

Heat oven to 400F. Prepare muffin tins. Beat linseed (or eggs) and sugar together with a whisk, a lot – til doubled in volume. Mix ground nuts, flours, xanthan gum, baking powder and salt in a bowl with a fork. Add olive oil to the linseed-sugar mix. Add the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Fill muffin cups halfway. Sprinkle mixed chopped nuts on top. Bake for 15 min / until springy (might take a bit longer without muffin tins).

These kind of rose up massively and spilled out of the muffin cups across the surface of the tin, leaving a sunken middle - ended up looking a bit like little bird's nests. But they actually tasted delicious: the top parts were all crispy and like a nutty meringue or something, the middle/bottom was squishier but also lovely and nutty, with a hint of grassiness from the olive oil (although quite well stuck to the paper liners). Could have been fun as Easter nests with Greek yoghurt and fresh fruit (grapes to look like eggs?) in the hollows.

My guess as to what went wrong: they rose due to the baking powder and the air from the beating, but lacked enough of anything (no gluten, no eggs) to hold them up and give structure, so sank right back down again. I forgot to add the xanthan gum, so that was probably part of it, but I feel like that might not have been enough anyway. Perhaps adding some cornstarch or glutinous rice flour would have helped (or using eggs instead of linseed, if that's an option). I also found them a bit too oily and a bit too sweet (reminded me a bit of these) - try dialling down the sugar and oil if making again. And, I wondered how the mixture would have fared in a cookie form: perhaps they would have turned out as delicious, nutty, meringue-like things like the top parts tasted like...

Buckwheat-coconut-blueberry pancakes

I woke up this morning and this pancake idea kept me awake: S really deserved a fancy Saturday morning breakfast - last night I was feeling a bit crappy and he went out to get Yoma (= one of our favourite food places) takeaway to try and sort me out.

This is another experiment with buckwheat: buckwheat flour crepes are obviously a classic, but I got into the idea of a thick, lumpy pancake full of whole buckwheat groats and other exciting, tasty bits and pieces.

(makes 5-6 medium size, thick pancakes)

1 banana, mashed with a fork
2 tsp coconut oil
3 tbsp plain flour*
3 tbsp wholewheat flour*
1 1/2 tbsp chickpea (gram) flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup cooked buckwheat groats
1/4 cup unsweetened shredded dried coconut
1 1/2 tbsp chia seeds
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 cup almond milk
1/4 cup water
pinch salt
1/2 cup frozen blueberries

coconut oil for cooking
maple syrup to serve

Mash the banana and coconut oil together in a bowl with a fork. Add the rest of the ingredients except the blueberries and mix together until well combined, adding a little more or less water until you get a good (American-style) pancake consistency (ie fairly thick). Add the blueberries, mix lightly and let sit for 5 min.

Heat some (~1 tsp) coconut oil in a frying pan. Add a big spoonful of pancake batter and spread it out to make a ~8mm thick pancake about 10cm across. Cook on the first side until it starts to look done at the edges, lift the edge to check it is brown underneath, then flip and cook on the other side until browned. Serve with maple syrup on the side.


I really liked these, and they went down well with S too: the buckwheat / coconut / cinnamon / blueberry go great together, and the texture is really sound (quite a dense kind of a pancake, but with so much texture that's fine). You only need a little maple syrup, but it really brings it all together.

*I like the idea of making these gluten free by subbing the plain and wholewheat flours with GF oat flour - I didn't feel like grinding the oat flour, otherwise I would have made them that way.

Buckwheat with tkemali-honey dressing

We went to the Russian store yesterday and I got so engrossed in browsing all the different kinds of Tkemali (Georgian plum-herb sauce) that S gave up and left without me. Oops. Still, I left the shop with a bag of buckwheat and a bottle of "Tkemali Classical" and no idea what to do with them, isn't that the best?

This is my first experiment with buckwheat. It took me a little research to work out what kind of buckwheat I'd ended up with (the labels are in Russian, perhaps Ukrainian, illegible to me anyway, obvs). It is dark brown, so I think that means it is kasha / pre toasted buckwheat. So probably not much good for sprouting or other raw style activities, but I am sure there are plenty of things...

1 cup buckwheat groats
1 1/2 cups water
2 tsp honey
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2-3 tbsp tkemali
2 tsp white miso
1 tsp fresh ginger, finely chopped
1 spring onion, finely chopped
1 tbsp fresh chopped coriander (or parsley)

Put the buckwheat and water in a small saucepan and cook for 10-15 minutes, until just tender (be careful not to cook for too long as it can turn mushy). Drain if necessary, then let cool. Meanwhile, mix the honey, balsamic, tkemali, ginger and miso in the bottom of a medium bowl. Add the buckwheat and toss. Add the spring onion and coriander and toss again. Like this, it is good as a grain / side type thing. I think the addition of chunks of roasted squash or sweet potato (or cooked beetroot) would turn it into a full on, super tasty salad.


The buckwheat is interesting: similar to bulghur wheat in texture, and very earthy in taste. I know it is used for porridge as well, perhaps I will try that next...