While we haven't given up on making our own soba noodles, we do have almost an entire bag of leftover buckwheat flour just begging to be used in creative and interesting ways. We've had whole buckwheat groats a few times, but we have less experience with the ground flour. Any suggestions?
The challenge with buckwheat flour is two-fold. First, it has a fairly strong, bitter flavor that can easily overwhelm a recipe. Secondly, buckwheat has no gluten since it's actually a seed and not related to wheat at all. No gluten means that we have to depend on other ingredients to create the structure necessary to hold a muffin or a cookie together.
We're thinking of trying buckwheat pancakes as a first experiment. These are traditional throughout Europe, and would definitely make a hearty start to the day! We've always wanted to try Kathryn's recipe for Buckwheat Blinis. This recipe from Epicurious pairing buckwheat pancakes with smoked salmon also looks promising:
• Buckwheat Pancakes with Smoked Salmon from Epicurious
Our flour is also fine enough that we think it could work well in pastries. There's a recipe for Figgy Buckwheat Scones from Good to the Grain by Kim Boyce that we'd really like to try. The recipe for these crumbly, chocolate-flecked cookies is also on our list:
• Nibby Buckwheat Butter Cookies from 101 Cookbooks
What are your recommendations?
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Buckwheat crepes! David Lebovitz has a recipe on his blog.
http://www.davidlebovitz.com/archives/2007/07/planet_of_the_c_1.html
I was going to recommend that you purchase Kim Boyce's book Good to the Grain! The chapters are sorted by flour, so you can find a number of other buckwheat flour recipes (I think one might be a pear bread with buckwheat flour). I just got my copy last week and cannot wait to start baking with it!
Russian blinis! Good with a sweet set-up (fresh fruit and a little fresh whipped cream or creme anglaise), or savory (traditionally served with caviar, but are yummy with salmon, spinach and creme fraiche).
http://wolffskasha.com/recipes/blini.htm
As a gluten free cook, I've made gluten free buckwheat pancakes a lot - one of the great things is that pancakes don't need gluten to stay together - the trick is to have a hot enough pan/griddle and to provide an acid like buttermilk or lemon to help activate the baking soda so that they will be nice and fluffy. My current favorite are these maple chocolate chip buckwheat pancakes.
Other GF things I've used buckwheat flour in are pizza dough, pita bread, sandwich bread, even tarte shells - I love the flavor of buckwheat so use it a lot in my baking!
I've made the buckwheat scones you mentioned from Good to the Grain, and they are fantastic. I've got them frozen in logs in my freezer, and I slice and bake them as needed.
Another suggestion would be Acadian Ployes. They're like the blinis a few people have recommended, but even easier. They use a 2:1 ratio of buckwheat to all-purpose, with the only other ingredients being baking powder, salt, and water. The end result, however, is amazing. They're like a soft, spongy crepe, and can be served with sweet or savory toppings. We eat them with Nutella and banana.
If you're interested in a recipe, there's one posted on this blog (http://andthenidothedishes.blogspot.com/2008/04/ployes-for-taste-of-yellow.html). Note that the ratio can be changed to 2 cups of buckwheat and 1 cup of all-purpose for more whole grainy-ness :)
I make raised buckwheat waffles. It's a nice change up from buckwheat pancakes.
Similar to these:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Yeasted-Buckwheat-Waffles-102622
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Power-Waffles-with-Yogurt-Bananas-and-Almonds-101034
I make an AMAZING gluten free and vegan buckwheat pancake!
http://crisiskitchen.blogspot.com/2010/03/blueberry-banana-pancakes.html
I will echo the previous comments on Kim Boyce's Good to the Grain. The Pear Buckwheat Pancakes are delicious. A little more time consuming, but definitely worthwhile are the Buckwheat Fig scones/rolls in the same book.
You can also very quickly make buckwheat pancakes by just mixing the flour with a little water - nothing else is needed.
My grandma always used to send us buckwheat pancake mix and a big jar of maple syrup for Christmas; I'd easily use up the bag of flour making those.
I have used buckwheat flour in many, many things - I bake gluten-free and it is very versatile.
It's also used in a lot of French recipes. Here is my recipe for French savoury crepes (the second one on the page, the first is for the sweet kind):
http://gfboulange.blogspot.com/2010/02/have-your-crepes-and-eat-them-too-two.html
You can also use buckwheat flour in place of part of the regular flour in most any recipe for interesting flavour.
we had buckwheat pancakes quite a bit growing up - with blueberries on top!
I make buckwheat cookies from a recipe from the New York Times. A very simple cookie but delicious. I really think you should use buckwheat grown in this country--Anson Mills or Bob's Red Mill are two sources. Scary things come in food from China.
buckwheat crepes are often used for savory/dinner crepes. you can use buckwheat flour to make bread, as long as it's mixed with wheat flour. try about 40%.
Poffertjes - little puffy Dutch pancakes! They use a yeasted batter, and usually part buckwheat flour, part wheat flour. You eat them with butter, powdered sugar, and sometimes a sprinkle of liquor.
You're supposed to use a special cast iron pan, like an aebleskiver pan, but I think they'd be fine in a cast iron frying pan.
Buckwheat is a pretty common flour in India and usually figures heavily in traditional festival/fasting recipes. If you google "Kootu Recipes", you should be able to find a ton of choices. Good Luck!
The Russian Heritage Cookbook has a few recipes, including one for buckwheat date squares that uses only buckwheat flour, no AP. Here it is:
1/4 lb. 2 tablespoons sweet butter
3/4 cup sugar
4 eggs, separated
1 cup dates, pitted
1 cup buckwheat flour
Cream butter and add sugar. Beat in egg yolks one by one. Grind dates in food processor, add to egg mix, and stir in flour. Beat egg whites stiff and fold in.
Pour into greased and floured 9x9" pan and bake at 325 F for 40-50 minutes or until cake tester comes out clean. Cool and cut into squares. May be served with sweetened whipped cream.
Haven't tried it yet, mostly because I don't have a food processor and hate having to whip egg whites (hand mixer only), but it always sounded delicious.
Homemade buckwheat fileld pasta! Make adough with 3/5 AP flour and 2/5 buckwheat flour, salt, eggs and water (for a total of 250 gr of flours I used 2 eggs and about 172 cup of water).
Let rest, roll out, fill with a mix of equal proportions of finely diced bresaola, mashed potato, ricotta, parmiggiano and whipped cream (unsweetened). Season with pepper and nutmeg, go easy on the salt as bresaola is quite salty. Serve with melted butter and some more parmiggiano. It's delicious!
I combine buckwheat flour with whole wheat pastry flour, then use them to make healthy (and delicious) crepes.
I really like this Buckwheat Cake:
http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/breton-buckwheat-cake-recipe.html
It's another of Heidi's recipes over at 101 Cookbooks but she based it on a recipe from David Leibovitz.
It make for a unique and less sweet dessert. And the yogurt topping she pairs it with makes all the difference.
Heidi's buckwheat fig scones are great as well.
My wife is Breton (the home of crepes) and the buckwheat crepes she makes are my favorite. The ingredients for the crepe batter are simply water and buckwheat flower. She always makes me a "Couple" (or double) with smoked ham, Swiss cheese and egg in the middle. Delicious!