Acorn Pancakes

Sterling brought a big acorn home from school today and somehow we got on the topic of eating it...which led to a Google search on whether or not they are edible or not...which led to gathering additional acorns from the front yard for pancakes.

It didn't take long to gather up this small mess of acorns (fresh off the low-hanging branches of the tree!)

We then cracked and schucked them, and then ran them through our manual garlic press. After running water over them for some time without getting rid of the bitter tannin taste, we relented and ran them through the blender after all. I was horrified when it looked like ALL the acorn was running out through our dishrag sieve, but when all was said and done, it left a very fine "meal" in the dishrag and this quantity of acorns yeilded just over the 1/2 cup called for in the recipe. Not wanting to waste it, we went ahead and used them all anyway.

It was a little disconcerting that the quantity of acorn meal was matched by a similar quantity of plain-jane flour, and then again by another equal measure of corn meal, but we went ahead with the recipe as planned. In retrospect, based on the time we spent preparing the acorns, I am glad we were able to cop out and only use a 1/3 ration of acorns. I should also mention that this recipe made us a total of only 7.5 pancakes. You will certainly want to double it for a family meal, but it was just right for the three of us (Jessica and Ginger are taking care of G-Gma tonight.)

The result was a success - heavy, filling, and delicious - just the way we like em.

Here's the recipe we followed:

ACORN PANCAKES from Sharon Hendricks
Break an egg into a bowl. Add:
1 teaspoon salad oil
1 teaspoon of honey or sugar
1/2 cup of ground and leached acorns
1/2 cup of corn meal
1/2 cup of whole wheat or white flour
2 teaspoons of double action baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 cup of milk
Beat all together. If the batter is too thick to pour, thin it with milk. Pour pancakes into a hot, greased griddle and cook slowly until brown on both sides.
Serve with butter and syrup or wild blackberry jam. Delicious!!

PREPARATION OF GROUND ACORN MEAL
1. Pick up several cupfuls of acorns. All kinds of oaks have edible acorns. Some have more tannin than others, but leaching will remove the tannin from all of them.
2. Shell the acorns with a nutcracker, a hammer, or a rock.
3. Grind them. If you are in the woods, smash them, a few at a time on a hard boulder with a smaller stone, Indian style. Do this until all the acorns are ground into a crumbly paste. If you are at home, it's faster and easier to use your mom's blender. Put the shelled acorns in the blender, fill it up with water, and grind at high speed for a minute or two. You will get a thick, cream-colored goo. It looks yummy, but tastes terrible.
4. Leach (wash) them. Line a big sieve with a dish towel and pour in the ground acorns. Hold the sieve under a faucet and slowly pour water through, stirring with one hand, for about five minutes. A lot of creamy stuff will come out. This is the tannin. When the water runs clear, stop and taste a little. When the meal is not bitter, you have washed it enough.
Or, in camp, tie the meal up in a towel and swish it in several bucketfuls of clean drinking water, until it passes the taste test.
5. Squeeze out as much water as you can, with your hands.
6. Use the ground acorn mash right away, because it turns dark when it is left around. Or store in plastic for freezing if you want to make the pancakes later.