Blueberry Buckwheat Pancakes Recipe

If breakfast is the most important meal of the day, then you simply must anchor your morning meal with a food that will give you the fuel you need to hit the day running. These blueberry buckwheat pancakes that come courtesy of chef and recipe developer Catherine Brookes of Blue Sky Eating are a fine choice indeed. That's because buckwheat is high in protein and fiber, meaning you'll stay full for longer, have energy to burn, and do your digestive system some good at the same time.

Guess what buckwheat doesn't have? Gluten. Despite the word "wheat" right there in its name, this is a naturally gluten free grain, according to Children's National, so even people with celiac disease can tuck into a stack of these pancakes with pleasure and without worry. Thanks to the blueberries, you have some added vitamins and minerals — not to mention taste — and with the maple syrup you get just enough sweetness to make these a crowd-pleaser, even for kids.

Gluten issues or not, everyone will appreciate the fact that these pancakes take less than 20 minutes from the time you walk into the kitchen to the moment you serve a stack.

If you've ever made pancakes using regular flour, you'll note that the process here is pretty much identical, just with buckwheat flour instead. All told, you'll need said buckwheat flour, some baking powder, a couple of large eggs, some milk (you can use regular milk or a non-dairy milk option), vanilla extract, maple syrup, and some fresh blueberries.

Got someone at the table who is not a blueberry pancake fan? Just cook theirs first without the berries, then add the fruit to the rest of the batter — the recipe will remain just the same. "It's no problem leaving out the berries or swapping for raspberries," says Brookes. "Just make sure they're fresh, not frozen."

Start the recipe off by whisking together the buckwheat flour and baking powder in a mixing bowl, stirring them well to fully combine the dry ingredients. You should use a large enough bowl to also accommodate adding and mixing the wet ingredients.

In a separate mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, vanilla extract, and maple syrup and work at these until they are all well combined into an even mixture.

Now it's time to make the batter. Sieve the flour mixture into the bowl with the wet ingredients using a fine sifter if you have one (a strainer can help). Don't worry if you don't have any hardware, just sprinkle in the dry ingredients slowly while stirring. Then fold everything together.

Now add the blueberries and fold them through (you can reserve some batter or wait on the berries if you want to make a pancake or two without fruit).

Finally for this step, heat some oil or butter in a frying pan on a burner set to medium heat.

Once the pan is heated ("You don't want the pan to be too hot or the pancakes will brown too quickly without cooking through in the middle," warns Brookes), add about a quarter of a cup of the batter for each pancake. They should take around two minutes on each side to cook, and they're ready to flip when bubbles appear on the surface. You can lift a flipped pancake and check the bottom for light browning as well. And if you want to make smaller "silver dollar" pancakes, just know they will cook even faster. 

You'll have to work in batches, so either serve the pancakes as they're ready with fresh fruit and maple syrup (optional, but advised!), or wait until they're all cooked to serve. And if you have extras leftover, they actually freeze quite well, and reheat as if fresh when popped into a traditional toaster or a hot oven.