Wheat Berry Pancakes

If you walk a few blocks down the street from where I live is one of the best breakfast joints in the area. They serve the best healthy pancakes I’ve ever had. No joke. They are wheat berry pancakes. Yeah. Who ever heard of wheat berries? Not me until I had Breakfast Bar’s wheat berry pancakes.

So I bought myself some wheat berries (you can find some at Bob’s Red Mill) in an effort to recreate the pancakes at home. And the wheat berries sat in my cupboard. For a really long time. And I can’t really figure out why I let that happen. Except I will say that when I set about finding wheat berry pancake recipes, they appeared daunting at first glance.

If you do your research, you will come up with a bunch of recipes that ask you to make a flour out of the wheat berry kernels. You can do this in a high-powered blender. That’s a good base for delicious wheat berry pancakes but it wasn’t enough for me. I swear I found some recipe for pancakes that called for cooked wheat berries. Or maybe that was for wheat berry bread? At any rate, months ago I cooked myself some wheat berries and then threw them in the freezer after eating about one bowl of wheat berries with some half-and-half.

For my ideal pancake, I wanted a combination of wheat berry flour and cooked wheat berries. And this, I believe, is key to recreating the Breakfast Bar pancakes. Because I swear my pancakes tasted just the same!

ingredients.

1 ½ c. wheat berry kernels (+ 1 c. cooked berries)
2 c. buttermilk
2 large eggs
3 T. sugar
2 ¼ tsp. baking powder
4 T. butter, melted and cooled
½ tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda

directions.

In the bowl of a higher-powered blender, pour the wheat berry kernels. Blend until the kernels have turned into powder or flour.
Add the buttermilk and blend again. Add cooked wheat berries and pulse a few times – don’t blend completely. You want some whole berries or larger chunks of berries in the pancakes.
Pour batter into a large bowl or batter bowl and stir in remaining ingredients.
Heat a pan on the stove over medium-low heat. Add some vegetable shortening or coconut oil to the bottom of the pan.
Pour batter into the pan appropriate to the size pancake you prefer. When the pancake has begun to bubble on top and browned on one side, flip over. Cook for another two or so minutes, until the other side has browned as well. Repeat until you have enough pancakes to serve yourself and/or your guest(s).
Serve hot with butter, maple syrup, golden syrup, fresh berries, whipped cream – you name it. The sky’s the limit!

My recipe was a bit experimental, but as you can see from the pictures the pancakes turned out beautifully albeit perhaps a bit too thin. The recipe listed above makes an enormous amount of pancakes. You will be eating for days unless you are feeding a large crowd.

Recipe rating:  ½