Acorn Pancakes with Wild Cherry Syrup

Acorn Pancakes with Wild Cherry Syrup

Jordan Tony

These acorn pancakes are an excellent way to stretch your wheat flour and experience a mostly forgotten flavor.

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Prep Time 10 mins

Cook Time 30 mins

Course Breakfast

Cuisine American

Servings 4 people

Ingredients

  

• 2 Cups Acorn Flour finely ground
• 1 Cup All Purpose Wheat Flour
• 2 tsp. Baking Powder
• 2 Medium Eggs
• 1.5 Cups Milk
• 1 tsp. Salt
• 1 Tbsp. Butter or Neutral Cooking Oil
• Nuts or Chocolate Chips Optional

Wild Berry Syrup

• 1 Cup Wild Berries We prefer Juneberries, Blueberries or Cherries
• 1 Cup Sugar
• 1 Tbsp. Lemon Juice

Instructions

 

• For the syrup:
• Begin by combining your berries, sugar and lemon juice in a bowl and stirring until the sugar begins to draw out some of the moisture from the berries.
• Once a good amount of juice has built up in the bowl, pour the berry/sugar mixture into a stock-pot and cook on low heat stirring regularly until the sugar dissolves fully.
• Once the sugar is dissolved, you can cook down the syrup to your desired texture and set aside.
• For the pancakes:
• Combine all of your dry ingredients in a large bowl and mix them well.
• In a separate bowl combine your eggs and milk and whisk them together.
• Pour the egg/milk mixture into your bowl of dry ingredients and mix until you have a smooth batter.
• Heat your butter or oil in a cast iron skillet or non-stick pan and pour in the pancake batter in half cup increments.
• Flip them when you see the bubbles start to turn into little craters on the top side of the pancake.
• Once you have a finished pile of pancakes, top them with the wild berry syrup and enjoy!

Keyword Acorn Pancakes

Background

There are very few plants in eastern North America that support as much life as oak trees. They provide the primary Fall calorie source for squirrels, deer, bears and other mammals, their canopy offers habitat for hundreds of insect species, and edible mushrooms like maitake, chicken of the woods and lion’s mane thrive on the older trees. Interestingly one of the most common mammals in North America (humans) largely no longer partakes in the annual abundance oak trees provide.

For indigenous people in North America and early European colonists, acorns were a staple crop providing much needed calories through the harsh, lean winters. Somewhere along the way the vast majority of people in North America decided that processing acorns into food wasn’t worth the effort or were forced to stop by being removed from their homeland. In our household the practice is alive and well. Setting aside the fact that acorns provide free food that literally falls from the sky, they have a delicious mild nutty flavor and they are packed full of nutrients and calories.

Acorns do require some processing before using them in your cooking. Most acorns contain a large concentration of tannic acid which has an extremely bitter flavor and renders them almost inedible in a raw state. Luckily, tannic acid is water soluble so grinding acorns into a pulp and soaking them in water for a few days extracts it completely. We will be following up with a more detailed guide on how to process acorns into acorn flour, but for now we have a reference video on our Instagram and Tiktok pages.

We’ve tried a number of dishes with acorn flour, all of which were delicious, but none came close to these acorn pancakes. If you’re new to the world of eating acorns and looking for a recipe to begin with, this is the one.

*Keep in mind that acorn flour produces pancakes with a much darker color than traditional wheat flour pancakes so don’t be alarmed if they look overdone.