Acorn starch transforms pancakes into seasonal delight

I was growing

When up we were told acorns are poisonous. I’m very glad they are not.

You wouldn’t want to pick an acorn off the ground and eat it, mind you. They contain a lot of tannin, which makes acorns taste extremely bitter and astringent if they aren’t leached.

With proper processing, acorns produce a wonderful meal, flour and starch. This column isn’t about doing that. There are plenty of sites on the internet that will tell you about leaching the tannic acid out of the acorns, drying them and grinding them for use in recipes. Today’s column is about buying the wrong product and looking for ways to use it.

My husband and I have been asked to present a program on indigenous culture in Pennsylvania history. Acorns were actually a bit of a staple in Native American cooking in this area, so I planned on taking a batch of acorn biscuits as part of my demonstration. I don’t currently have access to oak trees and their acorns, so I thought I’d hit paydirt when I found a site selling acorn flour. It’s not cheap, but I know how labor intensive it is to produce, so it was worth the expense.

Then it arrived and it wasn’t flour at all, but acorn starch. That’s what’s left in the bottom of the pot when you leach acorns. It’s fine, light brown, and used apparently for almost nothing except Korean acorn jelly and noodles. I’m still looking for a noodle recipe, but the jelly (think savory gelatin) doesn’t hold much appeal for me, though some day I’ll probably try it. There are a lot of online recipes for that!

So what to do with a couple of pounds of acorn starch? I decided to think of it more like corn starch and having actually baked corn starch cookies, I figured it could be substituted for flour. Sort of.

Acorns have a nutty-earthy flavor that I really like, but not in a sweet cookie. Acorns are also gluten-free, so that adds some other baking limitations. I opted for combining the acorn starch with buckwheat flour for an autumn pancake. The result was light, though not quite fluffy, with a milder flavor than regular buckwheat pancakes. I also didn’t have any buttermilk in the house, since I hadn’t been planning to make buckwheat pancakes, so I substituted the skim milk we usually have on hand with a bit of heavy cream I had in the refrigerator from making the Jamaican curried chickpeas I featured in my last column and a tablespoon of vinegar.

You could just use buttermilk, which is how I’m listing it in my ingredients today.

All in all, we were pleased with the resulting tender, smooth and tasty pancakes.

Acorn and Buckwheat Pancakes

3/4 cup acorn starch 1/2 cup buckwheat flour 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 teaspoon baking soda 1/4 cup buttermilk 2 eggs *** Blend all of the ingredients together. Pour about ¼ cup of the batter at a time into a hot frying pan or onto a griddle to form pancakes, cooking on the first side until air bubbles start to burst and the pancake is cooked enough to flip.

Cook the second side briefly to allow the batter to cook through. Makes 8-10 pancakes.

Serve with syrup, jelly or fresh fruit.

Christine Haines is a retired reporter and a culinary enthusiast who collects recipes from around the world and throughout historic time periods, often adding her own twist to an old tradition. She encourages her readers to cook adventurously.