Buckwheat Biscuits ~ buckwheat flour gives these tall, fluffy biscuits some great nutty flavor and a nutritional boost as well!
I’m like a kid in a sandbox playing with the colors, textures, and flavors of all the new flours I’ve discovered this year. I love the subtle changes they’re making in some of my favorite foods, but they have serious health benefits too, not only for you and me, but for the planet. Have you been reading about that scary wheat rust fungus that’s making a comeback? That kind of thing can cause real damage to our food supply when we’re so dependent on a single crop like wheat.
If you’re unsure about it, start small. In these biscuits I used a ratio of 1 part buckwheat to 2 parts white flour. The flour has a gray color with black specs (the ground up hulls of the buckwheat seed) running through it. It darkens as it cooks and the distinctive specs are beautiful. I went a step further and loaded the biscuits with parsley which gave them a green tinge as well. They were tender and amazing.
Buckwheat is an ancient grain that isn’t even related to wheat. It was one of the earliest crops grown in North America, and buckwheat cakes were a staple right up until the mid 20th century when corn and wheat took over our farmlands and our diet. Today buckwheat is more popular in Europe (light pancakes in France and Belgium, kasha cereal in Russia and Poland) and in Asia (noodles) than it is in North America where it’s pretty much relegated to specialty food stores.
Also try ~
Buckwheat Biscuits
Ingredients
- a generous 1/2 cup fresh parsley, packed (optional)
- 1 cup buckwheat flour
- 2 cups white flour, or a gluten free flour mix
- 1 Tbsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
- 12 Tbsp 1 1/2 sticks cold butter, cut in pieces
- 2 Tbsp honey
- 1 1/4 cup cold buttermilk, shaken
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425F
- If you are using the parsley, put it in the bowl of a processor and pulse till evenly chopped.
- Put the dry ingredients in the bowl of the processor, pulse to mix.
- Drop in the butter pieces and pulse about 10 times to incorporate the butter.
- Mix together the honey and buttermilk and while the processor is going, pour the liquids in and run just until the dough forms.
- Dump it out onto a floured surface and pat it into a fat disk, about 9", don't be worried by the sticky dough, all you are doing is patting it into shape and plopping the biscuits on the baking sheet, so you don't need to add too much extra flour.
- Cut out 6 biscuits with a 2 1/2 to 2 3/4 inch biscuit cutter. Reform the dough gently and cut 2 more biscuits if you want, although I always find the biscuits made with the reformed dough are not nearly as good or as pretty.
- Bake on parchment or silpat mat for about 5 to 6 minutes until the biscuits start to rise, and then turn down the heat to 400 and bake another 8 to 10 minutes just until fully risen and lightly browned. Don't over bake!
Make it your own ~
- I made my biscuits extra large because I pair them with soup and call it dinner. If you use a smaller cutter you’ll get more, just be extra sure to adjust your baking times.
Oh my lord these were amazing! I received a small bag of buckwheat flour from my grandmother, and this was the first recipe I ever tried with buckwheat in it, and let me tell you I am impressed, these are going to become a staple from now on! (:
The recipe was a good start on making buckwheat biscuits from hulled buckwheat cooked the night before, leftovers from the evening meal that replaced potatoes by steamed hulled buckwheat.
How to do it: chop the cold refrigerated cooked buckwheat in a blender/chopper until it looks like flour. The cooked buckwheat should be dry, no liquid, before chopping/grinding. The rest of the recipe is the same, adjusting salt if the cooked buckwheat was salted.
The first trial, which made excellent biscuits, used 130g buckwheat (prepared as above) and 100g flour, 50g butter, 100g sour cream, milk to adjust wetness. Other values: 1 Tbl baking powder, 1 tsp soda, 1 tsp sugar/honey. The dough was not rolled: spooned to 12 biscuits cooked 10-12 min in preheated 400F/200C oven /w fan. The wet biscuits on the baking tray looked like macaroons.
Modifications: Replace buttermilk by sour cream. + milk. Add milk to match the liquid in the recipe. The result is a soft, moist biscuit browned on top with flavor of buckwheat.
Trying two cups buckwheat and one cup flour instead
Two snack size unsweetened applesauce in place of butter
Let us know!
Although the original recipe was more divine, these will definitely do!
I didn’t see a great deal of difference, actually.
I made these biscuits to accompany the German Potato Soup which we liked, but personally I liked these biscuits even better. Now, first of all I should say I LOVE BISCUITS! These are a bit fragile because of all the butter but oh so delicious. We had them heated up the following morning, split and topped with poached eggs.
Thanks Edith, I can just imagine them with the poached eggs, yum 🙂
another recipe of buckwheat flour AND white bread flour. America’s addiction to white bread.
Because these are biscuits I do like the addition of white flour for texture, but you can certainly make these whole grain if you like!
Wallace, I sincerely don’t understand how your comment is useful.
My wife loved these but I modified the recipe a little: 1 cup each of white flour, whole wheat and Buckwheat. No way would I use 12 TBs of butter, It turned out fine with 6 TBs butter and 6 of EVO, my processor is to small for 3 cups and overheats when trying to do dough so I used a big mixing bowl and my pastry knife to cut the butter into the flour, I used 3 TBs of honey instead of 2 (2 buckwheat honey and 1 wildflower), I added 2 TBs of ground flax meal and 2 TBs of nutritional yeast. There seems to be a difference in temps in different parts of the recipe, I did 425F for 5 and 400F for 8.