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    Home » Nuts and Starches

    Acorn Pancakes with Pine Nuts

    Published: Nov 18, 2023 Modified: Jan 2, 2024 Author: Alan Bergo

    Jump to Recipe Jump to Video

    Rich pancakes speckled with golden brown, toasted pine nuts are my favorite acorn pancake recipe. A hybrid of regular pancakes and cornmeal johnny cakes with the addition of cold-leached acorn flour, it's a great place to start if you're looking for something to do with acorns or other nut meals like chestnut.

    Acorn-pine nut pancakes. Good for using up frozen wild blueberries.

    Leaching Acorns

    To make acorn flour, I harvest acorns and dry them in the fall. After cracking in the winter they're ground in a Vitamix blender and leached in cold water to remove tannins.

    A large container of acorn flour leaching in water.
    Restaurant cambro/polycarbonate containers are good leaching acorns.

    After a few weeks the tannins are removed and the acorns are strained and dried. I describe my whole method for making acorn flour at home in another post.

    A jar of acorn flour next to many dried red oak acorns.
    Red oak acorn flour will take longer to leach than white oak.

    I prefer to use cold-leached acorn flour here as it contains starch which helps the pancakes stick together. If you use hot-leached acorn meal made from boiling fresh acorns, I wouldn't use more than 30% of the total flour, and the batter will be more loose.

    A bag of frozen acorn flour vacuum sealed.

    Also make sure that you're using acorn flour and not acorn starch. Acorn starch is sold at Asian grocers, but should only be substituted in recipes for potato or corn starch. Traditionally it's used to make Korean Acorn Jelly (Dotorimuk).

    Ingredients

    The combination of pine nuts and acorn flour is a nod to indigenous ingredients of the Pacific Northwest.

    Acorn pancake ingredients laid out on a baking sheet: acorn meal, buttermilk, cornmeal, wheat flour, baking powder, sugar, egg, salt, melted butter.
    You'll need acorn flour, cornmeal, flour, baking powder, and a few other staples.

    Cornmeal in the batter makes it part Johnnycake and I like the texture it gives, but you can use up to 50% acorn flour and omit it. You'll also need a few pantry staples like buttermilk or warm milk, salt, and a pinch of sugar.

    How to Make Acorn Pancakes

    These are just like regular pancakes but with a few small differences. The images below illustrate the process.

    Sifting cold leached acorn flour through a tamis sieve.
    Sift the acorn flour to make sure it's as fine as possible.
    Toasting acorn meal and cornmeal in a saute pan.
    Toast the cornmeal and acorn flour lightly.

    Once the flour's toasted, mix it with the additional dry ingredients, then the wet ingredients.

    Adding melted butter to a bowl of buttermilk and eggs.
    Mix the wet ingredients.
    Mixing acorn flour and cornmeal with buttermilk, eggs, and melted butter.
    Beat the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients.
    Adding wheat flour to a bowl of acorn pancake mixture.
    Add the wheat flour at the end to avoid overworking the gluten.

    The pine nut garnish happens at the end. Flipping them to reveal golden brown nuts is a cheap thrill that never gets old.

    Putting pine nuts in a pan.
    Put a teaspoon of pine nuts down for each cake.
    Pouring acorn pancake batter over pine nuts cooking in a pan.
    Pour a small ladle of batter over the nuts.
    A golden brown, perfectly cooked acorn pancake with pine nuts in it.
    Flip the pancakes after 30 seconds to one minute.

    As written the recipe makes small pancakes that are good as a side dish, but you can make them larger too.

    A baking sheet with brown acorn pancakes and bacon seed from above.
    Vitamins A and P (acorns and pork).

    Tips

    • Smaller pancakes make a great side dish for meat.
    • To make regular acorn pancakes, omit the cornmeal and use up to equal parts wheat flour and acorn flour.
    • When serving as a side dish to a meal, pair them with a tart wozapi sauce or plum ketchup.

    More Acorns

    • Acorn Flour Crepes
    • Maple-Acorn Flour Torte
    • All Acorn Recipes
    Print Recipe Pin Recipe
    5 from 2 votes

    Acorn Flour Pancakes with Pine Nuts

    Rich acorn flour pancakes studded with pine nuts are a riff on a foraging favorite. Makes 12 small cakes, or slightly less larger ones.
    Prep Time5 minutes mins
    Cook Time30 minutes mins
    Total Time35 minutes mins
    Course: Breakfast, Brunch
    Cuisine: American
    Servings: 4 People
    Calories: 341kcal
    Author: Alan Bergo
    Cost: 5

    Equipment

    • 1 Griddle or 12 inch non-stick pan preferably cast iron
    • Spatula
    • 2 3 quart mixing bowls

    Ingredients

    Dry ingredients

    • ½ cup all purpose flour or gluten free flour (2.5 oz)
    • ½ cup cornflour or fine cornmeal (2.5 oz)
    • ½ cup acorn flour (2.5 oz)
    • 1 Tablespoon sugar optional
    • 1 teaspoon kosher salt
    • 1 teaspoon baking powder

    Wet ingredients

    • 1 ¼ cups buttermilk, at room temperature (10 oz) warm nut milk can be substituted
    • 2 Tablespoons melted butter (unsalted) (1 oz) plus a little extra for greasing the skillet. Bacon grease can be substituted.
    • 1 large egg at room temperature

    Finishing

    • 3 Tablespoons pine nuts
    US Customary - Metric

    Instructions

    • Preheat the oven to 200. Sift the acorn flour.
    • Toast the acorn flour and cornmeal in a dry skillet, tossing occasionally for a few minutes until hot.
    • Mix the still warm, dry ingredients except the wheat flour in a large bowl. In a smaller, separate bowl, mix the wet ingredients and beat with a whisk.
    • Add the eggs and milk mixture to the dry ingredients and combine thoroughly.
    • Mix in the wheat flour until just combined.
    • Lightly grease a skillet or griddle and warm to medium heat. Put down scant teaspoons of the toasted pine nuts, then pour scant ¼ cups of batter over each one.
    • Cook until the edges puff, flip and repeat, about 30-45 seconds per side, adjusting the heat as needed.
    • Take your time, and enjoy the thrill of revealing perfectly browned pine nuts with each flip of the spatula.
    • Transfer finished pancakes to a baking sheet in the oven until all the cakes are cooked.
    • Serve with your favorite pancake toppings like maple syrup and wild blueberries, or as a savory side dish as you would bread or flatbread.

    Video

    Notes

    Variations 

    • For an all-acorn pancake, you can use up to equal parts acorn and wheat flour, omitting the cornmeal, but the pancakes will be denser. 
    • The pancakes are great for breakfast and brunch. A novel way to serve them is as a side dish or vehicle for meat, like smoked, pulled venison.

    Nutrition

    Serving: 3cakes | Calories: 341kcal | Carbohydrates: 34g | Protein: 9g | Fat: 20g | Saturated Fat: 5g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 4g | Monounsaturated Fat: 4g | Trans Fat: 0.2g | Cholesterol: 56mg | Sodium: 705mg | Potassium: 143mg | Fiber: 4g | Sugar: 4g | Vitamin A: 237IU | Vitamin C: 0.1mg | Calcium: 101mg | Iron: 3mg
    « Foraging and Cooking Nannyberries
    Smoked Venison Bone Broth »

    Reader Interactions

    Comments

    1. Denton Bragg

      November 18, 2023 at 8:25 am

      Just in time! I had a great mast of chestnut oak acorns this year and as time permits I'm grinding, cold leaching and re-grinding it to flour. I use a version of Sam's 'quick leach' using the maple syrup filter paper. I have some brain-tanning classes I'll be teaching coming up next month with a home school group and I'm adding some acorn tech to the program. Kids really like my acorn/peanut butter shortbread cookies but I'll also have them make your pancakes! I'm still experimenting with my cookie recipe, now adding almond flour to the mix. I just ordered your book from Amzn (rather have been directly from you). Cheers on your successes and enjoying your articles.

      Reply
      • Alan Bergo

        November 18, 2023 at 8:55 am

        Hey thanks Denton. As written the pancakes are the perfect size for little hands. I also have non-Amazon ordering options for the book too. It is tricky though and they’re kind of a necessary evil in publishing.

        Reply
    5 from 2 votes (2 ratings without comment)

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