I eat too much: Buckwheat pancakes with pineapple maple syrup recipe

It’s definitely Winter now and it’s harder to get our butts out the door to munch on our brunch favorites. That means it’s time to bring weekend brunches indoors. 

This morning, we made some buckwheat pancakes topped with a pineapple maple syrup served alongside some crispy bacon. Why buckwheat? Three reasons: It sounds healthier. I have a whole bag of buckwheat flour that I need to use up (thanks to a buckwheat spatzle recipe I made a few weeks ago) and I am simply just obsessed with it! The nutty, fragrant, buckwheat flavor is so unique. 

On with the recipe.

I started with the pineapple maple syrup. All I did was cook down some fresh pineapples I had in my fridge (about 1/2 quart for 2 ppl) with the help of a bit of water. I used a medium heat in a small saucepan to do this.

I went ahead and started my buckwheat pancakes which were a mixture of the following.

• 1/2 cup buckwheat flour
• 1/2 cup AP flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• a pinch of salt
• 1 egg
• 1 tbsp molasses (Feel free to substitute with honey or even sugar, just add a bit more milk or something since you’ll have less moisture)
• 1 cup milk (Buttermilk would be yum. I am also curious to see what a cup of plain yogurt would do-not greek though)

I find that the well-method works best here. So, mix the dry ingredients in a big bowl first. Gently beat the wet ingredients in a small bowl. Make a well in the middle of the dry stuff and just slowly pour the wet into the well while incorporating some of the dry ingredients back to the middle of the well. I use a fork and use a stirring motion. I think whisks are too clumsy and who wants to clean them?! When all of the wet ingredients are in the bowl and you don’t see any flour anymore, stop stirring. You’ve got your batter!

By this time, your pineapples are softer and you can break the chunks up using a simple fork or a potato masher. It’s up to you how chunky you want your pineapple to be. Pour in as much maple syrup as you think you’d use up. I must’ve poured in 1/2 to 3/4 cup in mine. I bet some butter in it would taste good, too, but I didn’t do it this time. Continue boiling the compote-y syrup-y sauce making sure that you don’t burn it. Turn off the heat when you feel like the pineapples are cooked enough. It’s really up to you. Don’t be scared to taste it!

Heat up your non-stick skillet about medium to medium-high heat, put a bit of butter into the pan. The way I gauge if my pan is at the right temperature is that if the butter burns, the pan is too hot, but if the butter doesn’t bubble while melting, it’s not hot enough. The idea is that it should be hot enough to create a good crust on the pancakes but warm enough to make sure our batter cooks before our pancakes burn. A quarter cup of batter should make 1 pancake.

To serve, I loosely pile 4 pancakes on a plate, top it with a few strips of crispy bacon, then spoon some pineapple maple syrup on top. Nom.