Sourdough Pancakes

This recipe uses unfed sourdough starter to make amazing pancakes. I make these often (I don’t like wasting starter). After they cool, I freeze them so everyone can just pop a couple in the toaster when they want a pancake.

To cook: Griddle is right temperature when a droplet of water will “bounce” from the pan.

Something that took a while for me to figure out is how long to cook that first side. Every recipe I’ve ever seen says to flip them when bubbles appear. DON’T!

When the bubbles have almost all popped, THEN ya flip ’em! The second side doesn’t take nearly as long, and never looks as nice:)

To store them: Lay out a sheet of butcher, baking, or parchment type paper. Place a row of pancakes (I aim for a serving size per row) along the bottom edge of the paper. Fold paper over the cakes and place your next row on top. Continue accordion style. Slide the whole thing into a large freezer bag, and wrap it up. These will last in the freezer a few months (well, they never do around here, but they could, in theory).

If you want, you can change this up quite a bit. Experiment with different flours (whole wheat, spelt, hard red wheat), different milk (whole, coconut, almond, reconstituted dry milk), use either coconut or olive oil, or different sugars (white, evaporated cane, brown, or honey).

The mixture can be left overnight on the counter, or in the fridge. In the morning, depending on your starter, it may be quite thick, just thin it out using water or milk a bit at a time until it thins out enough to pour your cakes. I’ve left it for as little as 4 hours and up to 2 days before cooking using and didn’t notice any difference with the shorter time. The 2 day pancakes (left in the fridge, not on the counter) had developed a wonderful flavor.

Toppings in pictures:
In one set of pictures I used simple syrup made with canned peaches, topped with chocolate chips and almonds.
The other picture set is simple syrup made with pureed blueberries.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup unfed sourdough starter
• 1 1/4 cups water, plus 1/2 cup water
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1 cup milk
• 2 tbsps. sugar
• 2 tbsps. oil
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. salt

Method