With a wonderfully soft and tender crumb, these sourdough pancakes make a lovely companion to lazy Saturday mornings, especially when you pair them with pats of salted butter, a drizzle of maple syrup, and a mug of strong tea.
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Since I started baking sourdough bread nearly a decade ago, I’ve always needed a use for my leftover, discarded starter. And these pancakes, sweetened by the slightest trace of honey, are such a perfect use for it. I've meddled and toiled with this recipe over the years, making small adjustments here or there: leaving out the honey, beating in whole eggs, soaking the batter overnight.
And I finally have a version I'm really happy with: Marvelously rich with the flavor of whole grain flour, but tender, too, with a soft light texture.
Pancakes Are Great for Spent Starter
To maintain a lively and active starter for sourdough bread baking, you must feed it a slurry of water and flour. This carbohydrate-rich slurry nourishes and provides food for the bacteria that give good bread its characteristic tartness and it also feeds the yeast that give the bread a lofty rise. Bread needs lively and active yeast to give it a wonderful rise an airy crumb. And recently fed, bubbly starter does just that.
But, maintaining sourdough is all about timing. Once you feed your starter, and it bubbles up and doubles, those lively yeast will exhaust their food source and the starter will fall. This spent starter won’t make for good bread, but it’s perfect for making sourdough pancakes.
How to Make Tender Sourdough Pancakes
Tender pancakes achieve their loft through leavening. When you make pancakes the leavening comes from the natural chemical reaction between acidic and alkaline ingredients.
Thanks to all its friendly lactobacillus bacteria, spent sourdough starter is very acidic (that’s what makes it wonderfully tart!). When you combine the sourdough starter with baking soda, which is very alkaline, the pancake batter will bubble up beautifully - and a bubbly batter makes for airier pancakes with a tender crumb.
But that’s not all you need to make fluffy pancakes. Whipped egg whites will lighten your pancakes when you gently fold them into the batter, and also give the batter enough structure to hold the air that will make your pancakes light and fluffy instead of dense or chewy.
Use a Whole Grain Flour
When baking and cooking for my family, I like to keep our grains (mostly!) whole. Not only do whole grains offer the clear benefit of higher dietary fiber, vitamins, and minerals (when properly prepared), but they also offer incredible, complex, and rich flavor.
The problem is that many whole wheat flours are very high in protein and are flecked with dark bits of bran. That makes for great bread but not-so-great pancakes.
So, make your pancakes from white or ivory wheat instead of plain whole wheat flour. These flours are still 100% whole grain, but they’re made from softer wheat with a lower protein and a much lighter color. That means lighter, softer pancakes that are still a whole grain.
If you want to make pancakes with an alternative flour, try einkorn pancakes instead.
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Brushjl says
Delicious. A bit time-consuming, but worth it.
Kinneth says
yumm... i like the tasted so soft and sweet ... this pastry i remember my elementary day when i eat this
Kinneth says
I really like this food its too yummy, i remeber from this my elementary day .... i try to make the pancake but the result is not like a normal pancake.
Tiffany says
I just made these and they are the BEST pancakes ever
Thanks!!
Sandra Batorfi says
Thank you for this recipe. I made the pancakes this morning and they were delicious - so light and fluffy.
Frankie says
I actually tried this yesterday and my kids so love it so much! I can't wait to try this another time. Thanks a lot for posting!
Rachel says
Loved this recipe, thanks. Wondering can I use refrigerated starter or only room temp starter?
TIA
Jenny says
You can use refrigerated starter.
Reba says
I have made these twice. They are very good. But. Mine have a almost bitter taste. Would this mean that my starter was not right
Hungry Gopher says
Wow.. This looks fantastic! I'll have to make this for my husband for his birthday breakfast. I already have sourdough starter in my fridge that my husband made from the method his mother has been practicing for years.
Thanks for pointing out the value of good grains. I think we tend to quickly make a villain out of just one ingredient. Like you pointed out, it's a lot more complex than that I believe.
I have a Korean cooking blog with step-by-step tutorial videos, focused on healthy and simple recipes. And fermentation has been a big part of my life since fermented food is a big part of Korean cuisine. I just recently found out about your blog. What an inspiration!
Thanks for the great content!
Sun
Jessica Robinson says
these look wonderful. Thank you for sharing!
Mary says
Making my first ever starter. Can't wait to try this recipe.
Stacie says
How delightful! I'm going to get a starter going once I get some free time and these will be the first thing I make. Thank you for including the information about why it's important to ferment grains if we want to enjoy them and be healthy. I think that's something that hardly anyone knows these days.
laura says
just made these for breakfast and was surprised at how fluffy and light these pancakes were. made with spelt flour they had a subtle nutty taste that went perfect with the berry sauce and yoghurt I topped them with. definately my number one pancake now.
GP Reborn says
Oh my, I am in love!!! I will never use another pancake recipe. I must confess that I am not a purist. I have never followed a recipe exactly and this was no exception but I don't think you would mind my tweaks as they are just about my personal preferences. I will share them though as I believe they complimented your original. I mean you no offence.
I used 3 eggs instead of 2 and 1/4 cup of almond meal. I also added a dash of vanilla ( i just love vanilla) and 2 tbl coconut sugar and finally about 1/3 of almond milk.
The batter became so light and fluffy it was like a cloud in a bowl and even though one of the pancakes was over cooked because I got caught up doing dishes, it ended up staying light and fluffy and you couldn't tell I'd forgotten it in the pan. The rich tanginess of these pancakes was something else altogether. I'm in love....did I say that already?
Ivy says
Thank you for your recipe. I just made the most fab sourdough pancakes for the first time using your instructions for the pancakes and starter. I wasn't sure the started smelled right and I hoped it would turn out well. It did and it was so easy.
My girls approved the recipe and both only managed one pancake as it is quite filling to my traditional American pancake recipe.
I will continue to use this starter and recipe. I'll even try out the bread recipe as I have always wanted to make my own sourdough bread.
The k you for your easy to follow instructions.
Sheri says
Delicious pancake recipe!
Why do all sourdough quick-bread recipes include baking soda?
Isn't the natural sourdough enough to leaven the product?
Thank you.
Jenny says
Sourdough quick-bread recipes use baking soda as a leavening agent. Since the rise in these recipes needs to happen quickly, we rely on baking soda. Natural Sourdough requires time (just like a yeasted dough) to rise.
Rachel says
So I made these pancakes today with my new baby (a sourdough starter I got from a friend). They would have made excellent English muffins, but they weren't really pancakey, too chewy and bready. I've narrowed the problem down to one of two things - I only had one egg (tomorrow is grocery day) and my batter was a bit thick. Do you think the second egg and maybe some more milk (or butter or coconut oil?) would make them more pancakey or do these turn out a bit on the chewy/English muffiny side for you, too?
I am pretty excited that my starter did rise and tastes like real sourdough, though! Definitely time for some bread baking soon!
Emily says
I have followed your site for years and really love it—but I still feel intimidated by culturing and fermenting and starters. They seem to need so much attention and be so finicky (I've had a failed kombucha experiment) and I'm not sure where to start—which starter type, which recipe, etc. But this sourdough pancake recipe, which you just posted on facebook, seems so doable and easy and delicious! I can't WAIT to give it a try.
Rachel says
Thank you so much for this recipe, I make it all the time 🙂
Jolene says
Just a question about the flour.... I'm assuming its wholemeal flour and the sifting is to remove the bran???
justine mapes says
Hi, I love you posts! I started my sourdough starter from your recipe today...and I would love to try these pancakes. My son loves kale pancakes...but I want to use them with this recipe, and just add the kale...should I cook the kale and blend everything or blend uncooked kale with most of the recipe then add the sourdough starter before making them?
Gitti says
A 'bit' of flour and water would be 1/2 cup of flour and enough water to make it the consistency of batter.
I only use rye flour for the sour dough. Let it set uncovered or cover it with a thin cloth. Real sour dough is only made from rye flour and water.
Josefina says
Yeah, wheat or teff is just as real as rye. Rye just happens to be an easier grain to ferment, but doesn't make it any more real than ferments made with other grains. With wheat, I think it helps to leave a little of the bran/germ if sifted. But the problems with wheat are mainly when doing a spontaneous ferment, from scratch. If using an established sourdough, in my experience, it's easy to get the bubbles going.
Debbie says
These were lovely. i've been meaning to try them for a long time because I am one of those people who can't stand to throw away the "extra' starter when i feed. i put peaches in them which I had frozen from the summer. mmmm, thanks.