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Buckwheat Pancakes
4 tablespoons of buckwheat meal 1/2 pint of milk 2 teaspoons of baking powder Sprinkle the meal a little at a time with the milk, and beat well for ten minutes; let it stand for one hour; then fry as ordinary pancakes in a small frying-pan that has had a well-greased piece of paper rubbed over it, or on a soap-stone griddle. Serve very hot with syrup or sugar.
A very thin batter — closer to a buckwheat crêpe than a stack of American flapjacks. Two things need attention before you start: the liquid ratio and the leavening.
- The batter is deliberately thinFour tablespoons of meal to half a pint of milk gives a pourable, almost creamy batter. It will spread on its own in the pan and set into a lacy, flexible pancake; do not add flour trying to thicken it into something spoonable.
- Half a pintIf the book is American, that is one cup (8 fl oz). If British, 10 fl oz. Start with 8 oz, hold back the rest, and add only if the batter seems too stiff to swirl.
- Buckwheat mealBuckwheat flour, sold as such today; it is a seed, not a wheat, and contains no gluten. Older meal was coarser and darker, so a whole-grain or "dark" buckwheat flour is closer to the original than the pale sifted kind.
- The hour's rest, and the baking powderThe rest hydrates the meal and is worth keeping, but baking powder mixed in at the start may have lost some of its lift by the time you cook. Stir the baking powder in after the batter has stood, then cook straight away.
- Ten minutes of beatingWith a whisk or mixer this takes two or three minutes. The point is to break up lumps and aerate; buckwheat has no gluten to overwork, so beating hard does no harm.
- Pan and heatMedium, around 350-375F on an electric griddle — hot enough that the edges set in under a minute. A soapstone griddle was prized for holding steady heat; a well-seasoned cast-iron pan or a heavy nonstick skillet does the same job.
- The greased paperRubbing the pan with an oiled paper leaves the thinnest possible film, which is what keeps a delicate pancake from frying greasy. A folded paper towel with a little neutral oil or butter works identically, and should be reapplied between pancakes.
- YieldAbout four to six thin pancakes in a small (6-7 inch) pan — one modest serving, or two if there is other breakfast on the table. Scale up freely; the ratio holds.
Buckwheat has been a poor-soil crop across northern Europe, Russia and Brittany for centuries, and it came to American griddles largely through Dutch and German settlers — the buckwheat cake was a staple of Pennsylvania and New York winters, often raised overnight with a yeast batter kept going from one morning to the next. This version is simpler, using baking powder and a single hour's rest instead of a sourdough-like starter. Buckwheat is filling and cheap, and a pancake with syrup made a substantial breakfast. The soapstone griddle mentioned here reflects a genuine period preference, valued because the stone held an even heat and needed little grease.