Sourdough Pancakes

January 1, 2012 By Korena in the Kitchen 7 Comments

Happy New Year!!

The end of this month marks one year since I started this blog, and I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has visited and read my blog over the past year. I’ve had a ton of fun cooking and taking pictures and writing and I’m excited for another year of good food. Cheers! 😀

And now back to important matters at hand: Sourdough Pancakes!

As I now have a Tupperware container of sourdough starter living in my fridge, I’ve been looking for ways to use the excess that comes out of every feeding. I’ve made these pancakes twice now (on the list are also crumpets, English muffins, and obviously, bread) and they are delicious! Light and fluffy, they have a more complex flavour than regular pancakes, thanks to the fermentation of the yeasts in the starter. They are full of bubbles and have an almost lacy texture because of it.

These pancakes are very absorbent little sponges, so to give them something in addition to maple syrup to soak up without becoming sickly sweet, I made a quick strawberry-orange sauce: about 1 cup of frozen strawberries cooked with the juice of 2 mandarin oranges, a dash of water, and a few tablespoons of sugar. I boiled it until it thickened slightly, then pureed it in the blender and served it warm with the pancakes and maple syrup.

You need 3/4 cup starter to make these, which is more than the extra I end up with after each feeding, so I put that extra starter in another Tupperware container and “save up” until I have enough. Right now I’m feeding my starter once a week, so it takes a few weeks for the “extra” starter to amount to 3/4 cup, but it seems perfectly happy to sit in the fridge in the interim. If it looks like it needs feeding (ie, lots of liquid “hootch” on top), then I’ll just add a small amount of flour and water (equal parts by weight) to keep it happy until I’m ready to use it.

Sourdough Pancakes

Recipe from Allrecipes.com. Makes 6-8 pancakes.

Preheat a large skillet over medium-low (4 out of 10) heat.

In a large measuring cup (or a medium bowl with a pouring spout), mix together:

3/4 cup sourdough starter

1 egg

2 tbsp water (can use more or less depending on the thickness of your starter)

2 tsp vegetable oil

(1 tsp vanilla would be a good addition too!)

In another small bowl, combine:

1/3 cup powdered milk

3/4 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

1-2 tbsp granulated sugar

Whisk the powdered milk mixture into the starter mixture until smooth (don’t worry about over-mixing like regular pancake batter). It should be a bit thinner than regular pancake batter and sort of foamy.

Grease the heated skillet with a bit of vegetable oil on a paper towel, then pour about 1/4 – 1/3 cup of the batter into the pan. The batter will spread out a bit, so I like to cook just one pancake at a time. The surface of the pancake will be covered in irregular-sized bubbles. Cook until the edges are slightly dry and the bottom is deeply golden, then flip using a thin spatula. Cook until the other side is just as deeply golden, about 30-45 seconds.

Serve warm with butter, syrup, etc…

Really Easy Crepes, aka “Leathery Pancakes”

June 23, 2011 By Korena in the Kitchen 7 Comments

I was in Vancouver overnight last week to see “Wicked” with some friends, and the next morning we went out for crepes for breakfast. They reminded me of the crepes my Mum used to make, only she called them “leathery pancakes”, because… well, they are kind of thin and leathery.

Edited to add a comment from my Mum about the origins of “leathery pancakes”: “[They are] actually from my own childhood. My mum/your Nana actually coined the name after our Swedish babysitter Mrs. Solberg made them for us when my parents were away one time and us kids raved about them. I guess “leathery” came about because they don’t rise like Mum’s regular Scotch pancakes did and we used to have them either with butter/brown sugar/lemon juice or butter/sour cream/brown sugar.” Thanks, Mum 🙂

Anyway, there was no real recipe, it was just more a matter of mixing together an egg, some milk, and some flour until the batter was the right consistency, and then cooking them in a hot, non-stick pan (the non-stick part is important!). These “leathery pancakes” were one of the things I made for myself all the time when I was younger – I’d usually eat them with butter and maple syrup, and sometimes I’d roll them around some kind of savoury filling. At the crepe place in Vancouver, the crepes were spread with whatever filling you wanted, sweet or savoury, and served folded in quarters. I had one with ham, cheese, and egg, plus a Nutella one for dessert (I’m totally OK with having dessert at breakfast!). Unfortunately, I don’t have any Nutella in the house, so I had to make do with butter, brown sugar, lemon juice, and strawberries for a sweet filling, and ham and cheese for savoury. Really good, and really easy. This amount of batter makes just enough for two 12-inch crepes – enough for one person if you’re hungry, or two people if you feel like sharing 😉…

Perfect Pancakes with Fruit

May 29, 2011 By Korena in the Kitchen 5 Comments

I am constantly on the search for the “best” or “perfect” recipe for certain things – among them, pancakes, pie crust, and chocolate chip cookies. My go-to pancake recipe has been one that I got from TV quite a few years ago, and it has never failed me… however it calls for buttermilk, which is not something I usually have hanging out in my fridge, especially on random weekend mornings when the pancake urge hits. I end up making sour milk with a dash of white vinegar and subbing it for the buttermilk, but the fact that the recipe contains an inconvenient ingredient sort of subtracts from the “perfectness” of the recipe for me (yeah, I’m a weirdo). (Also, I’ve never really understood what makes a buttermilk pancake any better than a regular pancake, so I’ve never really seen the need to use buttermilk.) Anyway, the quest continued…

I came across this recipe, aptly named “Perfect Pancakes”, on a food blog about a year ago, and wrote it down in my little recipe notebook without noting the source, which I though I would never again find in the bowels of teh interwebz. However, through the magic of Google, I found it, so I can give credit where credit is due for what really is the perfect pancake! I finally made them for the first time the other week, and I will definitely be making them again. They were beautifully light and fluffy and they cooked up perfectly, and they didn’t require any ingredients other than those normally found in my kitchen (ie, no buttermilk). I added frozen blueberries and strawberries and bananas and served them with maple syrup (don’t even talk to me about that Aunt Jemima crap!). Please try these. They actually are perfect 🙂…

Pancake Tuesday!

March 9, 2011 By Korena in the Kitchen 6 Comments

On Monday I watched a show on the Food Network that featured amazing-looking banana pecan pancakes, and I was immediately inspired to recreate the recipe. I had a feeling that Shrove Tuesday – aka Pancake Tuesday – was coming up soon, and a quick Google search revealed that it was actually the next day. Well! What a coincidence!

On Tuesday morning as I stumbled into the shower, I mumbled incoherently at Nate that it was Shrove Tuesday and I would be making pancakes for dinner. His response was a confused, “What? Why pancakes?”

When they look like this, why NOT pancakes?!

Not being Christian or religious myself, I realized that I had only the vaguest inkling of the link between Shrove Tuesday and pancakes (I just knew it had something to do with Lent), and certainly not enough of an understanding to explain it, so I just yelled, “Shrove Tuesday. Pancakes. Lent!” from behind the shower curtain, leaving Nate still mostly unsure about why we were having pancakes for dinner.

But I didn’t care about why, I was more concerned with what, as in what kind of pancakes to make? Banana pecan, of course! I spent most of Tuesday composing flavours in my head and figuring out what to serve along with the pancakes. I eventually settled on a fruit salad of Gala apples, oranges, red grapes, and a handful of frozen blueberries, and I would add the zest from the orange to the pancake batter to make them orange pecan banana. We were out of maple syrup, but I remembered seeing a homemade syrup recipe on Dinner with Julie, so I decided to make that as well.

…

Sourdough Pancakes

Happy New Year!!

Sourdough Pancakes

Really Easy Crepes, aka “Leathery Pancakes”

Perfect Pancakes with Fruit

Pancake Tuesday!

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