Ingredients Needed

Buckwheat flour. As the star of the dish, buckwheat adds incredible depth of flavour. It has a distinctive taste that’s a little earthy, nutty and bitter. While its flavour can polarise people, what you pair it with makes a difference – the ingredients here help mellow it, while bringing out its best qualities.

Coconut sugar. Because of buckwheats unique flavour punch, a little sugar goes a long way. I love coconut sugar for its caramel hints, but feel free to sub for another variety.

Baking powder. Necessary to give these yummies height. If you’re gluten free, check your baking powder is too. A form of starch – like wheat – is often added to absorb moisture.

Ground cinnamon and vanilla essence to build and balance flavour.

Milk. You can use any kind – I like almond or oat here.

An egg. This provides the additional structure needed to hold gas bubbles as it cooks, helping these rise.

Butter helps make these pikelets moist and flavourful. Too much and they’ll be heavy, too little and they’ll be dry as a cracker!

You can typically find buckwheat in the baking or health section at your local supermarket. As it’s more of a speciality flour, it can be dependant on the store!

Kitchen Tips

Let your batter stand. Because buckwheat is a rich source of soluble fibre (a type of fibre that soaks up water), this will naturally thicken the batter over time, providing an ideal thick consistency. This recipe has a little more liquid to account for this.

Use a milk jug! Life-changing tip – for perfect pikelet circles, pour your mixture direct out of a milk jug into the pan. It’ll help you get a lovely round shape, while saving a drippy mess from using a spoon or ladle.

They’re just as delicious cooled. Pikelets work great fresh off the pan or cooled to room temperature. I prefer the latter!

Nutrition Spotlight: Buckwheat

Despite its name, buckwheat is not a variety of wheat, rather a pseudocereal. This means that while we use and eat it as we’d do with grains, its seeds don’t grow on grasses like wheat – they’re botanically different.

As a pseudocereal (which makes buckwheat sound like such a wannabe grain…when did grains get so cliquey? Kidding) it brings many nutrition perks to the table, like:

It’s uber rich in antioxidants. These work to defend our cells from free radical damage, linked to ageing (before our time!) and the development of certain disease (1). Buckwheat provides more antioxidants than many other cereal grains, including oats or rye (2).

It’s a good source of fibre, which helps slow the release of energy into the bloodstream.

It’s naturally gluten free, making it a good option, both nutritionally and in the kitchen, for those who cannot eat wheat flour.

Thanks for reading! Looking for more pancake recipes? Try these flourless protein-packed pancakes or these banana oat pancakes🥞.