We travelled back from Wiltshire today and ended up having a very late lunch, so all I could be bothered to do for the kids’ tea was pancakes. These pancakes are great. They contain no gluten or egg so my daughter can eat them, but the whole family love them. They’re light and fluffy, simple to make and really tasty. And you don’t need to leave the batter to rest so if you want to make them on the spur of the moment, you can.

The main ingredient is buckwheat flour (I use a brand that is labelled gluten free, just to be on the safe side), but the secret, I think, is to add a bit of gluten free bread flour, because it has xanthan gum in it. Xanthan gum is often used as a binder and thickener in gluten free recipes (gluten is what makes the stuff it’s in sticky) and having it already mixed into your flour saves a lot of faff. I also use a branded egg replacer called, originally, ‘no egg’, to really ensure a nice thick consistency. And just for good measure, a tablespoon of Flaxseed because I read somewhere that it can be used as a binder to replace eggs. You could probably leave it out, but at the very least it replaces some of the Omega 3 that real eggs would bring to the dish, plus it contains calcium and iron, so I like to put it in.

Ingredients:

• 130g gluten free buckwheat flour. I use Doves.
• 70g gluten free bread flour. Again, Doves is good. If you can’t find bread flour just use gluten free plain flour.
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder.
• 2 tablespoons of golden caster sugar.
• 1 tablespoon of Flaxseed mixed with a tablespoon of water. I sieve the Flaxseed so there are no husks in the batter and Delilah (that’s the daughter) can’t detect its presence (she is monumentally fussy).
• 2 teaspoons of Organ ‘No Egg’ mixed with 1 tablespoon of water.
• 1/2 a teaspoon of regular table salt.
• 200ml milk (any kind; I use full fat) and 150ml natural yoghurt (I usually use a nice thick Greek one) mixed together.

Method:

1. Sieve the flours and baking powder together into a bowl.
2. Add the sugar and salt and make a well in the centre.

3. Mix the milk and yoghurt with the egg replacer and Flaxseed, and stir into the flour.

4. If the mixture is too thick, thin it with more milk. You need it to be fairly thick though; it should  look roughly like this:

5. Heat some sunflower or groundnut oil in a frying pan over a medium high heat. Add a spoonful of batter. Because it’s a thick and sticky mixture, you’ll need to shape and form it a bit in the pan.  I find this sort of ladle really helpful:

6. When you can see little air bubbles in the top of the mixture in the pan, flip the pancake over and cook the other side:

7. Put the cooked pancakes onto kitchen paper to absorb excess oil then serve with your choice of topping. Diggy likes maple syrup, Delilah prefers Nutella:

I like lemon juice, a sugar substitute and chopped fruit. Yum!