Cottage cheese and buckwheat pancakes
Rise and shine, breakfast freaks. We love our carbs and caffeine in the morning, and when it’s time to flip the script on the usual toast and jam, fluffy pancakes are pretty hard to beat. We like to kid ourselves these ones are a bit healthier than regular pancakes with their buckwheat flour, cottage cheese, buttermilk and the banana topping but honestly, who cares and who’s counting macros that early in the day? Not us, that’s for sure.
If you’ve never used buckwheat flour before, it’s kind of interesting. Buckwheat sounds like it might be a grain but it’s actually a seed that’s classed as a ‘pseudo-cereal’. Which is where a plant isn’t a true grain but has enough starch and nutritional goodness to be used as one. FYI other pseudo-cereals are quinoa, amaranth, chia and teff, which is used in Ethiopia to make injera (a flatbread staple).
Buckwheat is actually related to rhubarb and sorrel and is thought to be native to modern day Yunnan province in the Southwest corner of China. The flavour is nutty and vaguely bitter and buckwheat seeds, also called groats, can be used whole, either toasted or not, or ground into flour. Because buckwheat flour tastes quite strong, it’s best used along with wheat flour to tone down the flavour and give a better texture too; buckwheat is gluten-free so it needs a bit of protein strength from elsewhere or the baked goods (or noodles – soba are made from buckwheat flour too) will fall apart. Groats are used to make porridge, and as a grain alternative in dishes like pilafs and salads. So there you go… that’s buckwheat! If you really don’t fancy the flour here or can’t find any, just use extra plain or some other flour – wholemeal would work well too.
SERVES 6
75g (½ cup) buckwheat flour
150g (1 cup) self-raising flour
1 tsp baking soda
50g (¼ cup) firmly packed brown sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
75g butter, melted, plus extra, for cooking
250g (1 cup) cottage cheese
1 tsp vanilla extract
180ml (¾ cup) buttermilk, approximately
butter, for cooking
sliced banana and maple syrup or honey, to serve
Preheat the oven to 120˚C.
Sift the flours and baking soda into a large bowl. Place the sugar, eggs, melted butter, cottage cheese, vanilla and buttermilk in a bowl and whisk to combine well. Pour the egg mixture into the flour mixture, then using a large metal spoon, whisk to form a smooth batter. You might need to add 2-3 tbsp more buttermilk if the mixture is too thick (it should have a heavy dropping consistency); this depends on how ‘wet’ your cottage cheese is.
Melt a little butter in a large, heavy-based frying pan over medium heat, swirling to coat the pan. Working in batches, drop ¼ cupfuls of the batter into the pan to form thick pancakes. Cook for about 3 minutes or until the surface is puffy and covered in bubbles and the base is deep golden. Flip, then cook for another 2-3 minutes or until risen and cooked through.Transfer to an oven-proof plate and keep warm in the oven while the remaining pancakes cook. Serve the pancakes hot with sliced bananas and maple syrup drizzled over to taste.