I’m not sure where this delicious recipe came from, but it was passed to me by the Scary Dragon, Maude’s daughter and chef-in-training. It’s a great way to use up leftover sourdough starter. We use ours straight out of the fridge, and it works perfectly well. The boys love their pancakes with maple syrup, but Pete and I have ours with homemade raspberry jam and cream.
Here’s the batter recipe:
- 1 cup sourdough starter
- 1 cup plain (AP) flour
- 1 egg
- 1½ cup whole milk
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons butter, melted
- 1 teaspoon baking soda, sifted
- 1 tablespoon white sugar
1. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, sugar and sifted baking soda.
2. Pour the sourdough starter, milk and egg into a large mixing bowl and mix well with a whisk or electric mixer until combined.
3. Gradually scatter in the dry ingredients, mixing constantly to avoid lumps. Finally, stir in the melted butter. Allow the batter to rest for at least half an hour before cooking.
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
Rats, I just threw some out, always feel bad when I do that, of course I should have made pancakes like you! They look really tasty. Jo
Next time, Jo. If there is one thing we SD bakers always have, it’s surplus starter! :)
I made a batch for Sunday breakfast, and the boys were blissfully happy…
Celia
Celia, I just found your blog – it sure is keeping me busy reading! It’s wonderful! I do a lot of sourdough baking & like to see how other people use their starters. Looks like I could learn a lot & I’ll definitely be keeping up with your postings!
I’d like your opinion on something when you get time – about the starter you use to make the pancake batter. Is it recently fed or do you collect the discards from feedings & use as-is (no fresh food) when you have enough?
So far, I’ve only used lively, recently fed starter for my pancakes but I’ve somehow managed to collect about 8 cups of ‘discard’ (experimentation.. sigh!). It’s 5-6 days worth… has been kept refrigerated but hasn’t been fed (trying to figure out what to do with it). I have a crowd here so usually make about 100 pancakes at a shot but figure it’d be worth it to use the 8 cups to make enough to freeze & save myself some work. I just don’t know whether it needs to be fed first or if can be used as-is. Am hoping ‘as-is’ cause feeding that much starter would sure deplete my flour supply!
Also.. say I want to use all 8 cups of starter.. would I then use 8 cups of flour, 12 cups of milk (and so on..)? The recipe I use will work with the doubling method but I know some recipes don’t double (or quadruple) well.
Marla
Marla, thank you for your kind comments, and for stopping by! I get very excited when fellow breadbakers drop in, since it’s such a passion of mine. We’re having a cottage loaf bake-off – I hope you’ll join us!
Re the pancake batter. I feed my starter on a ratio of one cup of flour to one cup of water, so it’s a very wet mix (not ideal, but that’s how I started, so I’ve never bothered to recalculate all my recipes). I’ve used both old starter and recently fed starter in the pancakes, and while the results are a little unpredictable, they both work fine.
Because my boys eat so many pancakes, I’ll usually make a batch with the starter I’m discarding at its weekly feed. So that starter is cold and straight out of the fridge having been fed a week or more before. Sometimes I’ll make the pancake batter the night before, and leave it in the fridge overnight. In fact, we’ll often make pancakes from the batter we made the night before, then put any remainder back in the fridge and cook it again the following morning, and that’s fine too. It separates a bit and gets a little hooch, but we just stir that in.
The only thing I can recommend is that you try a small batch first and see how you go. I’d have no problem trying it with the unfed starter, but I’m not sure whether or not you could make a giant batch in one hit, simply for logistical reasons – don’t know how you’d whisk in 8 cups of flour without it getting lumpy etc. Also not sure how well the prepared pancake batter would freeze? If anything, perhaps the cooked pancakes might freeze better? (But I haven’t tried it, so couldn’t say for sure.)
Would love to know how you go, if you get a chance!
Thanks, Celia