Buckwheat flour bread rolls

This is the fifth in a series of posts documenting my adventures with less common flours. Today: buckwheat flour. (Previously: malthouse flour. Next: wholegrain spelt flour.)


Buckwheat has been cultivated in the Far East for thousands of years. Buckwheat differs from the flours featured so far in this series in that it doesn’t come from a cereal, or even a grass; Buckwheat is actually related to knotweed. It doesn’t contain gluten, so to make a conventional bread it must be mixed with a flour containing gluten; I used strong white bread flour.


Last night I made four small rolls for today’s lunch. In the morning I used the buckwheat flour to make chunky pancakes (a common use for the flour), which Clare and I agreed tasted terrible — Clare described the taste as ‘healthy’, by which she meant you would only eat it for the health benefits (in much the same way as cod liver oil). Unfortunately the rolls weren't much better, although large quantities of butter made them palatable. I certainly won't be using buckwheat again.