Buttermilk Oat Pancakes

I love pancakes. But I don't love the feeling of ughiness after eating a white flour, oily pancake from a package. This being said, I have always struggled to make some really good pancakes from scratch. For some reason I never could make them work. They always turned out thin and rubbery or thick and gooey. What I wanted was thick, fluffy, and buttermilky (yes, I made that word up)!

I spent some time on the internet reading and looking at many other pancake recipes to see what it was that I was missing. Sooner than later I discovered many things that I was doing wrong. I've made a list of tips that will help when making pancakes later on.

In the meantime, I present to you the most delicious pancakes you will ever taste! I gaurentee your whole family will love them!! I urge you to go make these, be it breakfast, lunch, dinner, or anywhere in between!

I made these once before, however I used all purpose flour instead of oat flour. The all purpose flour pancakes were the right texture, and they were pretty good, but they left me with the same yucky feeling in my tummy. I have very limited choices for nutritious flours here in Cambodia. Actually there is no choice: you can either get white flour or white rice flour. Neither of which I'm a huge fan. So, in order to make these as nutritious and yummy as possible I used oat flour, which is easy to make yourself.

The oat flour gives these pancakes a slightly nutty and rich flavor while still creating an awesome fluffy, thick, buttermilky pancake!

There is just a hint of sweetness from the unrefined palm sugar. In fact, it's perfect! They are sweet enough to be eaten on their own, but don't give you a sugar coma if you top them with maple syrup or honey. I don't have much of a sweet tooth, so this is important for me!

Pancake Tips:
1. Buttermilk helps the pancakes get the raised, fluffy texture because of the reaction between the vinegar and baking soda. Baking soda only works if there's some sort of acid.
2. DO NOT OVER-STIR THE BATTER!!!! This is probably the biggest mistake I was making. I would furiously whip the batter until it was thin and soupy. This creates rubbery pancakes. Gently stirring until just mixed creates a fluffy texture.
3. DO NOT PRESS THE PANCAKE DOWN after you flip it. This was another of my big mistakes. After I flipped them, I would press them down quite hard. My thinking was that they would only cook all the way through if I did this: false! They will cook through if you don't press them.
4. Once the pancake is done place it on a plate. Occasionally flip the done pancakes on the plate to keep them from getting soggy.

Buttermilk Oat Pancakes  

Yields: 8-9 pancakes

Ingredients

            1 ½ cups oat flour* (takes 2 minutes to grind your own in a blender)

            ½ tsp. baking soda

            ½ tsp. baking powder

            1 tsp. Himalayan salt

            1 Tbsp. palm sugar

            1 cup buttermilk (1 tsp. apple cider vinegar + milk of choice; see step one for how to make buttermilk)

            2 egg whites

            2 Tbsp. plain yogurt

Directions             1. Pour the 1 tsp. apple cider vinegar into a liquid measuring cup. Pour in enough milk to make 1 cup. Do not stir. Set aside.

2. In a medium size mixing bowl mix together the dry ingredients.

            3. In a small mixing bowl mix together the wet ingredients.

            4. Pour the wet mixture over the dry and GENTLY stir. It’s okay if there’s some lumps.

            5. Spray a non-stick skillet lightly with cooking spray and heat the pan. Pour about ¼ cup of batter on the skillet (after 1 pancake I turned the heat to med-low). When it starts to bubble flip the pancake over. DO NOT PRESS IT DOWN! Cook on each side for about 30 seconds.

* Note: I didn’t have quite enough oats to make 1 ½ cups, so I used about 2 or 3 Tbsp. all purpose flour. Using all oat flour should be fine.

I enjoyed mine with honey, plain yogurt, papaya, and apples!