Beautiful Buckwheat Bites
Buckwheat is an ancient seed that is nutritious, flavorful, and naturally free of gluten. It is not related to wheat but can be used as a wheat substitute in a variety of dishes and baking projects. Janie's Mill Buckwheat Flour is ground from the whole kernel - hull included - which gives these bites their beautiful speckled appearance, infuses them with a nutty flavor, and gives them a soft, dense texture. So easy to make; so wonderful to eat and share!
Yield: about 16 mini-bites, or 5-6 larger bites, or one 8x8" pan
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup (80g) Janie's Mill Buckwheat Flour
- 1/3 cup (45g) Frederick White Wheat Flour
- 1/2 cup (100g) sugar
- 1 stick (115g) butter, melted
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 pinch of sea salt flakes
- hulled buckwheat groats for garnish (optional but so pretty)
- 1/4 cup (50g) hulled buckwheat groats (kasha) to add to the batter (optional but so tasty)
Notes
Equipment You'll Need
- 2 mini muffin tins, 1 regular muffin tin or a 8x8" pan
- medium saucepan
- spatula
Instructions
- Line mini or regular muffin tins with liners or line square pan with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Melt butter in medium saucepan and let cool a little.
- Add sugar to butter mixture. After mixing in the sugar, add the egg, followed by vanilla, followed by salt.
- Combine flours and add flour mixture to the wet mixture. Mix until no flour is visible.
- Pour batter into pan of your choice and garnish with buckwheat groats.
- Bake small bites for 15 minutes, bigger bites for 20 minutes. If you are making a pan of bites, bake them for about 25 minutes.
- Let cool on a wire rack, enjoy and share. The bites keep well in a sealed container both at room temperature and in the fridge.
Baker’s note:
- Mixing and matching flours will be a whole lot easier using a digital kitchen scale. Stone ground flours are not standardized the way roller milled flours are and defy being measured with cups. Investing in a kitchen scale will kindle a love affair with the metric system. It will make all your baking (and cooking!) projects easier and you will have fewer dishes to clean.
- You can find hulled buckwheat groats in most grocery stores and coops. Janie's Mill does not hull buckwheat since they stone-mill the entire seed, nutritious hull included, into their buckwheat flour.)
Theme and Variations
Here are a few points of inspiration and adaptation:
- Using Janie's Mill Buckwheat Flour in this recipe is a real treat, but you may substitute just about any Janie's Mill All-Purpose or Cake/Pastry Flour to make this recipe. Mixing and matching different flours until you have 125g (approximately 1 cup) of flour will be fun.
- Experiment with what you have in your flour pantry. Swap out some of the wheat flour with Dark or Light Rye Flour or Cornmeal. You will want to keep around a third of wheat flour to have some gluten in your batter, but there are no hard and fast rules. This is a great recipe for flour experimentation and adventures!
- Feel free to substitute the vanilla with almond extract or a splash of rum or whiskey.
- You may substitute other seeds, nuts, dried fruits or chocolate for the buckwheat groats. Fold them into the dough and garnish to your heart's desire.
- Citrus zests of all kinds may be great flavor companions to whatever flour, flavor or seed you choose to use (or have on hand).
- Adding fresh fruit to these bites is an option. Pressing a blueberry or cherry in the middle of a bite or using apples or pears to make a fan garnish are all wonderful options.
Posted on September 14 2022