Buckwheat Pancakes with Cardamom Syrup

If you come to my house on a Saturday morning, chances are good you'll have a good breakfast. I'm not sure when the tradition started, but it's been going on for a while. I love getting up before everyone else, turning the radio on, and putting together something sweet.

This Saturday was buckwheat pancakes with roasted cherries (sliced peaches in the original recipe) and cardamom cream syrup. This meant three components to put together; then again, I knew it would be a good while before anyone else would be ready for breakfast.

So I started by pitting a bunch of cherries (they're really great right now) and putting them in a baking dish with a bit of vanilla sugar and butter and letting them roast in a 375 oven for about 20 minutes. Then I boiled some raw (demerara) sugar with water and cardamom, added some cream, and boiled that down a bit.

By the time the syrup was done, so were the cherries. Both took some time but were very easy to put together. By the way, apricots are also really delicious cooked like the cherries.

Time for the pancakes: three kinds of flour plus baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

As Melissa suggested, I used the opportunity to clear out my fridge a bit: I had the remnants of some buttermilk and sour cream, and I topped that up with yogurt. Two cups of fermented milk products seemed like a lot, but my batter was actually a bit stiff, and so I added a bit more yogurt.

In the interests of saving a dish to wash, I just dumped in the egg, butter, honey, and buttermilk/yogurt and whisked it all together. Tip: if your honey is crystallized (as mine always seems to be), melt it with the butter.

On the griddle they went. I spooned these on a bit too generously and they had trouble getting done on the inside. I suggest smallish spoonfuls and flattening them a bit.

Look at how nicely they brown and puff up. I was a bit concerned because there was just one egg in the batter, but the buttermilk/baking soda combo seemed to be plenty to make these light and fluffy.

So here's the finished product with all three components. I loved the combination of fluffy pancakes and cardamom with the juicy cherries. Claire was feeling conservative and just had her pancakes with the classic maple syrup, and she really liked that. I'm pretty sure Sami tried (and liked) them both ways. In any case, this is a very good pancake recipe: a mostly whole-grain pancake that doesn't taste like one. I would happily eat them again on another Saturday.