Blueberry, Walnut and Buckwheat Freezer Pancakes
Buckwheat pancakes with blueberries and walnuts folded through, cooked in one batch and frozen flat, so breakfast on a Tuesday is just a toaster away.
Why it works
Berries and nuts are the two food groups the MIND diet names by name for cognition, and they're the two with the most consistent cohort evidence behind them. Blueberry anthocyanins cross into the brain in animal studies and track with slower memory decline in the Nurses' Health Study cohort. Walnuts carry alpha-linolenic acid and their own polyphenols, with trial data on cognitive measures backing them up. Buckwheat is here for the technique as much as the nutrition. It has no gluten, so the batter can't go tough from overmixing, and it holds its texture through freezing and toasting far better than a wheat pancake, which turns straight to leather.
The berry and nut associations come from large prospective cohorts, mainly the Rush MIND cohort and the Nurses' Health Study, and those show correlation over years rather than proof of cause. Intervention trials are shorter, smaller, and messier. Call this a good breakfast on decent evidence. Not a treatment for anything.
Ingredients
- 180 g buckwheat flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 2 eggs
- 350 ml milk or unsweetened oat milk
- 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for the pan
- 200 g blueberries
- 60 g walnuts, chopped
- 2 tbsp ground flaxseed
Method
- Whisk the buckwheat flour, baking powder, cinnamon and flaxseed in a bowl.
- Beat the eggs, milk and oil together and pour into the dry mix. Stir until just combined and leave it five minutes to hydrate, which is what stops buckwheat pancakes being gritty.
- Fold in the blueberries and walnuts.
- Cook in a lightly oiled pan over medium heat, two to three minutes a side, until bubbles hold their shape on the surface before you turn them.
- Cool completely on a rack. Warm pancakes stacked into a bag steam themselves soft.
- Freeze flat with baking paper between them. Toast from frozen.
