Food waste fix: Make your own Sourdough Starter Pancakes

Last week I wrote about embarking on a four-week online course in sourdough baking. Starter is an important part of successful sourdough baking and our instructor, Holly Davis, posted her own dehydrated starter (called Joseph) to the participants.

We revived it by feeding it with rye flour and water. It took a couple of days but bubbles started to appear, an indication of the activity of the wild yeast and bacteria doing its work.

Sourdough bakers will know that there is quite a bit of discarded starter because each time you feed it to maintain activity you only need a tablespoon of the active starter. Luckily, there is a delicious way of using up some of the starter discard.

I reproduce this recipe with Holly’s permission. Make the mix in the evening and enjoy crepes for breakfast. My aim is for thin, flexible and light crêpes, with crispy edges.

Sourdough starter pancakes

Ingredients

• 2 ½ cups milk or water to mix
• 1 cup sourdough starter/leaven discard
• 2 cups unbleached white emmer flour or unbleached white spelt or wheat flour
• A good pinch sea salt
• 2 large eggs
• Ghee or coconut oil, as required to cook pancakes

Method

In a large bowl or food processor, whisk together the milk or water and the starter. Combine the flour and salt. Slowly sprinkle the flour into the liquid and whisk together well, so that the batter is pourable and smooth with no lumps. Cover with a clean tea towel and leave overnight or for 8-10 hours or so.

Next day

Whisk the eggs and add them to the batter.

Heat a 16cm pancake pan or heavy-based frypan over a medium to low heat. If using a steel pancake pan, it will retain and transfer the heat without a high flame. Coat pan in a thin layer of ghee. Pour in a little batter and tip to spread a thin even layer across the pan. Cook until the surface has obvious bubbles and is dry, put a small dob of ghee or coconut oil around the edge of the pan and on the centre of the crêpes then flip over. Cook until golden, with crispy edges. Remove to a plate and cover with a clean tea towel, place the cooked pancakes on top of each other, until you have all that you need or cover and place the pancakes on a tray in a warm oven until you serve them.

Serve with ripe banana and raspberry jam or maple sugar and lemon juice or citrus salad or butter and a good drizzle of maple syrup or cultured cream and fresh berries or … your choices are many.

Freeze any excess pancakes for later enjoyment!

You can find out more about Holly Davis here.

Side note from me: I forgot to add the eggs and ended up with a delicious sour savoury flat bread that I had with a slow-cooked beef stew.