Buckwheat & Oats Pancakes

(lousy photo I know, it was taken with an archaic camera phone)

So, I've finally got off my lazy ass to blog for the first time. Yeay!! Mad Scientist 1, Lazyness 0. I did promise a certain someone that I'll share some "healthy experimental" recipes, so here goes...

It was a Sunday morning and I felt a little experimental in the kitchen. First thing that came to mind was pancakes. Been craving it for awhile now but I wanted to customize it make it more interesting. So the idea was to use whatever whole grains I had on hand instead of wholewheat flour (or regular white flour). Let the experiment begin..

Ingredients

• 2 eggs
• 6 tablespoons sugar (used muscovado sugar)
• 1 cup milk
• 2 cups flour (used 1cup hulled buckwheat and 1cup rolled oats)
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 3 tablespoons butter (used canola oil)
• 1 cup milk
• vanilla essence

First things first, you need to make your own buckwheat and oat flour. I find this to be a much cheaper way than buying the flour at a store. Now you'll need to grind the buckwheat and oats separately in a blender/food processor/coffee grinder. Don't worry if the flour isn't as superfine as the store bought kind cause the slight coarseness adds texture to the pancake which I think is great.

Once you have that done, use a pan to melt the butter and set it aside. Next step is to beat the eggs lightly in a bowl using either a whisk or mixer. Then add the sugar and beat until it is foamy. After that, gradually pour in the milk and continue to beat.

In a separate bowl combine the buckwheat and oat flour with baking powder. Now fold flour mixture into the egg mixture until it is a smooth batter. Then fold melted butter into the batter. If you choose not to use butter in the recipe you can subtitute it with 3 Tbsp of canola oil. And I also added about a capful or two of vanilla essence.

At this point, you can add just about anything from finely grated carrots to some mashed bananas to grated apples to raisins or some chopped dried fig/apricot. For those healthy freaks out there you may like to add some ground flax seed. Don't limit yourself be creative with your food.

Now get your frying pan out and flip away. To get uniform-sized pancakes use a 1/4 cup measuring cup to spoon out batter onto the pan - I was able to get about 10 pancakes. Serve with butter and golden syrup though I had mine with some sliced mango and natural honey.

Enjoy!