Attempt #1: buckwheat flour.
My mother and niece came over from Spokane to visit for the weekend and I decided it would be a good time to try out my newest, straight from Japan, flour sifter. I thought about giving soba noodles a try, but I opted for buckwheat crepes instead. My niece said she loves crepes.
First, the milling. I set the mill to a fine setting that I generally use for fine white flour. Fresh milled buckwheat smells wonderful. That pungent nutty and bitter flavor really carried.
From the raw milled flour, I first sifted through my new #80 mesh traditional Japanese sieve. You can see in the notes below that it resulted in a roughly 57% extraction. This very fine buckwheat flour is what will ultimately be used to make soba noodles–next time.
The buckwheat middlings, the result of a being run through a #50 mesh sieve (leaving the bran behind):
For the crepes, I added some of the middlings back to the fine flour, however, not enough in the end as they need more rustic texture and flavor. The crepe batter was:
- 65 grams very fine buckwheat flour (plus 10-15 grams of the middlings)
- 65 grams all-purpose flour
- 2 eggs
- 3/4 cups kefir (substitute for whole milk, cut with the water)
- 3/4 cups water
- 2 tbls melted butter
- 1 tbls sugar
- 1/2 tps salt
By design, the batter sat in the fridge overnight to be ready first thing Sunday morning.
My first couple of crepes out of the pan were a little bit of a mess, but as I got the temperature regulated and steady, they started to come out pretty decent. Because of the 50/50 buckwheat/all-purpose flour blend and using a very fine of a buckwheat flour, the crepes were much too refined. I was disappointed in how muted the distinctive buckwheat flavor ended up being. It was there, but generally could have been overlooked. They were fine for regular crepes though, with just a slight bitter hint of “wait is that buckwheat.”
The topping is a light (very little added sugar) apple and walnut compote.
The family, post-brunch: 
whole-purpose.com 