Nourishing Traditions and a Pancake Recipe

Recently, Emily at Live, Learn, Love Sew has been blogging about a cookbook called Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon. It’s one of those books that I’ve been hearing a lot about lately so after I read all the good things that Emily was writing about it I decided to order it. You can now count me among the book’s fans.

One of the concepts that I found intriguing in the book was fementing and soaking grains before you eat them. Fermenting or soaking grains neutralizes enzyme inhibitors and phytic acid. Enzyme inhibitors hinder digestion of complex sugars, gluten and some proteins. Phytic acid affects the absorption of certain vitamins and minerals.

With this idea in mind I decided to try the recipe for soaked pancakes in Nourishing Traditions. They came out great and R and Z loved them (D and T don’t like any pancakes). Besides for being delicious they needed only a little bit of maple syrup because they were so moist. You do need to think about it the night before you make them but it is well worth the effort. Here is the recipe:

2 cups whole wheat, whole spelt or whole kamut flour (I used whole spelt)
2 cups whole yogurt
2 eggs lightly beaten
½ teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoons melted butter

Soak the flour in the buttermilk, yogurt or kefir in a warm place for 12 to 24 hours. Those with milk allergies can use 2 cups of water plus 2 tablespoons of whey or lemon juice. FYI when I first smelt the flour and yogurt in the morning it did not smell good. Just ignore the smell and when you add the other ingredients it will smell fine. Stir in the rest of ingredients. The mixture will be very viscous. Add a little water to thin it to the desired consistency. I greased my pan with butter and cooked them like regular pancakes. The pancakes took a little bit longer to cook than regular pancakes. I made pancakes that were about 4 inches wide and I put 1 teaspoon of maple syrup on each of them (maple syrup needs to be kept out of the hands of children or they will use the whole bottle!). You can refrigerate any extra pancakes and warm them in a 350 degree oven for about 5 minutes the next day.