Soaking grains is always one of the biggest issues that stop people from furthering their journey into traditional foods. Many of the recipes are drastically different than what we’re used to, they take extra time, and often fail. Leaving us with dense, doughy products.
A few months ago I was making our un-soaked gluten free pancakes one weekend and started to wonder about my whole grain rice and millet in the back of the cupboard. I had run out of one of our gluten free flours and couldn’t for the life of me figure out why I’d never thought to use my whole grains in the blender! You see, I don’t have a grain mill, and my blender is a cheapy one on it’s last leg.
But I’ve made blender pancakes plenty of times! Could my blender maybe suffice for a grain mill?
I’ve been testing different grain varieties every weekend or two and I think I finally found a quick and easy way to make soaked pancakes! These can easily be made gluten free by refraining from gluten containing grains.
Soaked Whole Grain Pancakes
Ingredients
2 cups whole grains (use what you have on hand, wheat berries, rice, oats, millet, flax – I usually use 1 cup oats, 1/2 cup brown rice, and 1/2 cup millet)
1/2 cup yogurt
1 cup milk
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 Tbsp oil or melted butter
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
(also up to 1/2 cup of milk if needed for blending)
Method of Preparation
1. Combine the grains, yogurt, and milk in the blender and let sit out overnight. For a dairy free version, you could use coconut milk and something like lemon juice or apple cider vinegar instead of the yogurt and milk.
2. In the morning, blend until smooth. If you have a powerful blender, this may not take long – in my blender it takes about 5 minutes. You can add additional milk in this step to help blend if needed.
3. Add remaining ingredients and blend just until combined.
4. Cook pancakes on medium heat until lightly browned, flip over and cook until cooked throughout.
5. Top as desired.
*this recipe also works well when you’ve forgotten to soak them, just proceed as normal. 
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This may be a dumb question, but if I use brown rice for one of my grains do I need to cook it first? Or do I just use the hard, raw rice kernels?
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donielle Reply:
August 23rd, 2011 at 3:42 pm
@Kara, Just the hard uncooked grain! You’ll cook it when you fry them up.
*and totally not a dumb question!
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Ooh, got to try these! Thank you – what a great idea! And thank you Kara for asking the ‘dumb’ question that I was going to ask
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I have another “dumb” question: Will pasteurized milk spoil if left out overnight to soak? I can’t get raw milk where I live, and I don’t want to make spoiled pancakes!
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donielle Reply:
December 2nd, 2011 at 5:05 pm
@Jeanne G., It shouldn’t…….. if you use yogurt – but I’d just use coconut milk instead.
Buy a can of whole coconut milk and dilute it 1:1 with water, and measure out what you need.
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Hi,
Wondering if I can use kefir instead of milk? I am new to soaking and trying to find GF recipes that don’t have lots of sugar or white rice flour has been a bit of a challenge. I am learning the benefits of soaking and have started making and drinking kefir this last week.
Thanks for all the great info. Look forward to exploring your website more in the near future.
Thanks!
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donielle Reply:
March 21st, 2012 at 4:50 pm
@Jeniver, Yes, kefir will work wonderfully! Just use kefir instead of the milk and yogurt.
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Hi, I followed your recipe pretty much and mine came out too watery. I did use coconut milk and apple cider vinegar instead of the yogurt but do you know if it could’ve been another reason?
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donielle Reply:
April 3rd, 2012 at 7:24 pm
@Jon, The batter will be more watery if you don’t use wheat berries and make them gluten free. (like I did) It’s just the nature if GF breads! but they cook up just fine and should be fluffy and ‘puff up’ a bit like in my photo. Even so, the pancakes will be thinner than pancakes made with wheat flour.
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Jon Reply:
April 4th, 2012 at 12:06 pm
@donielle
Thank you for your response, Donielle! I didn’t use any wheat berries so that would explain that. I’m aware that GF flours/grains don’t hold well so I actually put some tapioca flour/starch and some arrowroot powder (not a huge corn starch fan) in there to bind it.
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donielle Reply:
April 5th, 2012 at 3:02 pm
@Jon, The tapioca flour and arrowroot won’t necessarily help bind them (with GF products you normally use xanthan gum – though do not use it with these! they turn out wet inside) They basically just work as a regular flour – comparable to white flour in that it may ‘lighten’ the mix.
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