Weekend pancakes

Every weekend for the last few years, my family has made pancakes for Sunday breakfast.  I've always tried to make them as healthy as possible, while also trying to make them enjoyable for my children.  While most things can be made to taste good with maple syrup or jam, I have to admit that often what I served up was a bit heavy and not what would be accepted as pancakes in most households.  The reason being that I was using buckwheat flour to make them gluten free.  Although, to be honest, sometimes, I would throw in a 1/4 cup of wheat flour, just to make them a bit lighter.

I'm extremely happy now though, after a bit of experimenting to serve light and fluffy, yet filling, gluten free pancakes.

The addition of two things - ricotta and baking powder has made a world of difference.

Recipe for Buckwheat and ricotta pancakes:

2 cups buckwheat flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
pinch of sea salt
1 1/2 cups milk (more if you like a thinner pancake)
1 cup ricotta
2 eggs
2 tablespoons of melted coconut oil or butter.


In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.

In another bowl, combine the milk, ricotta and egg together with the melted butter or coconut oil. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry until combined. Let sit for 5 minutes.


Heat up a frypan, grease it lightly with butter or coconut oil and drop batter (about 1/4 cup for each pancake) onto the pan. When bubbles form on top and the slides look almost set, turn over to cook the other side. Remove and repeat. Unfortunately there's no getting around the fact that butter (or coconut oil) needs to be added to the pan before each batch of pancakes!

These are delicious with yoghurt and maple syrup.  The addition of the ricotta makes the pancakes much higher in protein and more filling.