Fresh Milled Whole Wheat Pancakes

Create a classic morning breakfast, from scratch. What’s more classic than a pancake? The part that I love the most (besides the pancake itself) is that it’s truly a guilt free breakfast. The flour used in this recipe is from hard white wheatberries, fresh ground. This is the ingredient that makes these pancakes stand out from all others, as fresh milled flour has a distinctive, full bodied and nutty flavor.

These pancakes are delicate & satiating. And come together, ingredient to plate in just under 30 minutes.

Now I’m not telling you to NOT buy whole wheat flour from the grocery store…But I’m telling you that I don’t. I have a wonderful friend who lives a few country blocks away, and she has a flour miller. So from time to time, I ask her for a bag of flour. I do plan to buy my own flour miller. I’ve been lovingly stalking a NutriMill Grain Mill, and intend to buy soon! And then I’ll purchase my wheat berries from Azure Standard, which is a food delivery service great for buying bulk dry ingredients and things that may be a hard find in the grocery store.

So am I telling you to not make this recipe unless you have fresh milled flour? Well, I’m only interested in eating grains that are fresh milled because they’re just better. I don’t see getting the full flavor and soft textured crumb from grocery store flour. Going back to pancakes made with plain old grocery store flour just isn’t going to cut it. I’ve been ruined. So I’ll only make this pancake recipe when I have fresh flour.

What I’m saying in more words than probably necessary is don’t come at me and tell me these pancakes aren’t very good unless you follow this recipe using the fresh milled white wheatberries for your flour. I mean the flour is 90% of the pancake, so quality and taste is of the utmost importance. If you opt for “whole wheat” grocery store flour, you’re on your own, bucko.

Ingredients
Wet Ingredients
1 C. half and half
Juice from 1/2 lemon
1/3 C. fat (I use butter and pork lard), melted
1 egg
Vanilla extract, measured with the heart

Dry Ingredients
1 C. fresh milled white wheatberries
2 t. baking powder
1/8 C. sugar
1/4 t. Celtic salt (or other high quality salt)

Process:
Make buttermilk by adding the lemon juice to the half and half. Set aside for 10 minutes to curdle.

Meanwhile, mix the dry ingredients in a larger bowl and set aside.

In a smaller bowl, beat the egg, melted fat, vanilla, and the buttermilk.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and gently mix with a spatula or spoon. Careful to not overmix…you want it lumpy!

Set batter aside for 8-10 minutes to rest. This allows for the ingredients to mingle for a minute and yield better pancakes.

While the pancake batter rests, gently heat up a skillet. I prefer to use real animal fat, such as pasture raised pork lard to cook literally everything in, but especially pancakes.

Once your skillet is hot, the fat has melted and the batter has rested- you’re ready to go!

I cook my pancakes on medium until bubbles form all over the top. Then flip and turn stove temperature down to low.

Top with additional butter, and warm maple syrup, gently heated up on the stove.

Enjoy!