Sourdough Pancakes & Waffles

MIMG_0548y mom used to make pancakes from Bisquick, and they were never my favorite breakfast food because they were always dry.  So I had to put a bunch of syrup on them, or as I got older, I’d put jam in-between them to make a pancake sandwich.  My culinary indifference to pancakes ended after my first trip to Dottie’s in SF, where I had his pancakes and they were truly amazing:  browned nicely on the outside while being extremely moist on the inside, but not under-cooked.  It was well worth the over hour wait!

Now that we’ve been making our own bread at home, we have a wild yeast starter in the fridge, and decided to try making sourdough pancakes to see if they would be any better than the normal ones (even the ones made by folding in whipped egg whites!).  So the best recipe that I found was from King Arthur’s web site, and we modified it slightly since we didn’t want to make an extra 2 cups of starter.  You can use as much or little starter as you wish as long as it sits overnight.

Recipe:

Overnight sponge:

  • 2 cups all purpose flour (10 oz)
  • 2 T sugar
  • 2 cups of milk or buttermilk (16 oz)
  • 1 cup starter (unfed)

IMG_0545Pancake batter:

  • All of the overnight sponge
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/4 cup melted butter or vegetable oil (1.75 oz / 45 g )
  • 3/4 t salt
  • 1 tsp baking soda

Optional flavorings:

  • 1 T ginger?
  • 1/2 cup of pumpkin puree + 1 tsp cinnamon:  didn’t really taste like pumpkin, though.

IMG_0544

Instructions:

  1. Make the overnight sponge the night before, and let it sit out at room temperature.  I left it in the fridge one night, and the batter didn’t have that thick texture that it usually develops.
  2. Mix everything together in the morning, and make the pancakes using 1/2 teaspoon of oil on the griddle for each pancake.