sourdough pancakes

One of the first things I did when I started this project was bike down to Stoneground Bakery to ask for a bit of sourdough starter. Their starter has been alive for at least a year and has acquired what I think is an awesome taste.

Once at the bakery, I asked Danielle about the possibilities of buying a cup or so. She came back with Andrew, one of the bakers, and a pint container of bubbling starter. After a few quick questions on its care, I brought the starter home and outlined the possibilities.

I could make bread…All I had for flour at the time was the graham flour from Anson Mills. I had read that this flour needed to be mixed with some more refined flour in order to get a good bread, but I ignored all that since I didn’t have a source for a basic regionally milled white flour. (Thanks to Jessica at Fresh Thinking – Living Local in Wilmington, NC, I now have a source with Southern Biscuit flour.) After a few miserable attempts at making bread with the graham flour I decided to move to other recipes.

I attempted sourdough biscuits using the same flour. They came out as hard as doorstops and about as easy to eat. It was obvious that baking this flour wasn’t going to net me anything resembling bread, so I fell back on the idea of pancakes.

I like the result I came up with.

I have been making sourdough pancakes for the past three or four Sundays. The pancakes are very tangy and are pretty fluffy. They are also easy to make and easy to freeze for later, which is especially good for me to use for weekday breakfasts. The pancakes go along great with my rice and honey in the morning.

I won’t get into how to make a sourdough starter from scratch since I cheated and bummed some from a bakery. Which is what you should do anyway. Step one on the road to sourdough pancakes is to find a bakery that makes sourdough bread and ask for a cup of starter. If they are decent folks – which they most likely are – you’ll walk away with a starter that will last your lifetime and more if you take care of it properly.

For the pancakes, you will need to know a day in advance that you want to eat them. Sounds easy enough, but you are out of luck if you forget. Without exception, the mixture in Step 1 needs to ferment overnight.

1 – Add 2 1/2 cups of flour (any flour) to 1 cup of sourdough starter and 2 tablespoons of some sort of sugar. I use honey, but you can use plain granulated sugar, brown sugar, agave syrup, maple syrup, whatever. Just don’t use fake sugars or Stevia. They don’t have what the yeasts and bacteria in the starter are looking to eat.

2 – Mix until smooth. Cover lightly and let sit overnight.

3 – In the morning, mix up an egg, two tablespoons of oil (if you have it) and 1/4 teaspoon of salt. Salt inhibits the fermenting and adds to the taste.

4 – Stir this mixture into the batter and mix until smooth.

5 – In the same bowl you made the egg mixture (why dirty another bowl?), add a teaspoon of baking soda to a tablespoon of warm water. Mix well.

6 – Carefully add this mixture to the batter. Fold the batter instead of stirring. The batter should begin to rise and bubble. Let it bubble for a few minutes.

7 – While you are doing all this mixing, you should have turned the heat up on a large skillet. The pan should be pretty hot when making pancakes.

8 – Pour pancake sized drops of batter on the hot pan, flipping when large bubbles appear on the surface. Keep finished pancakes warm in the oven or try to keep up with eating them as they finish. This might work better if you have a bunch of people.

9 – Finish up the batter by making one giant pancake in the shape of an octopus.

10 – Top with honey and preserves.

Recipe adapted from various online recipe sources, Wild Fermentation and my observations of the process.

The most important part of this process is to replenish your starter. To the original starter, add one cup of flour and one cup of warm water. Stir and let sit lightly covered overnight. Put the starter in the fridge until you need it again being sure to warm it up and stir it before using it in a recipe. Your starter will last indefinitely as long as you feed it.

If you are not going to use the starter frequently, you should still feed it at least once every two weeks. Dump out and compost about a cup and a half of starter then add equal amounts warm water and flour. Stir, let it get bubbly at room temperature then put the starter – covered – back in the fridge.