Sourdough discard pancake recipe (2024)

FAQs

Can you do anything with sourdough starter discard? ›

The discard is not active enough to make sourdough bread rise but it does have many other uses and baking powder can be added if required. Savoury options include English breakfast muffins, pretzels, caramelised onion biscuits, and sourdough pizza dough.

Experts recommend feeding a starter twice daily. And at each feeding, you hold onto 1/2 cup of your original starter, discard the rest, and then add its same weight in water and flour. With this schedule, you'd discard almost a cup of sourdough starter every day.

Gummy sourdough pancakes are usually due to cooking issues. Be sure to fully cook the pancakes all the way through.

The benefits of using sourdough discard

Instead of the buttermilk offering that tang and tenderness, it is replaced with discard which uses the starters natural acidity. This is a great option if you don't have buttermilk on hand, but you have sourdough discard sitting around.

How do you know if your sourdough discard has gone bad? I recommend keeping sourdough discard for about one week, but I do know others who keep it for much longer. After one week, there is a higher risk of mold or bad bacteria growing on the discard.

You can store mature sourdough discard in the refrigerator indefinitely. As long as there is no mold, it is good to use. It may develop a grayish liquid on top called “hooch” which can be poured off before use or stirred in. If you stir it in, the flavor will become more sour.

You can use old sourdough discard if it's been stored in the fridge, however, you really want to use it up within a week - 2 weeks max.

Room-temperature starter should be fed every 12 hours (twice a day) using the standard maintenance feeding procedure: discard all but 113g, and feed that 113g starter with 113g each water and flour.

If you think you killed your starter with heat, always use a probe thermometer to take the temperature in the center of the starter. If it is below 130F/54C it is still alive, even if it was exposed to a higher oven temperature for a short time.

TASTE: Just a word to the wise, these taste like pancakes from your favorite restaurant. Thick, fluffy, soft, and delicious! They do NOT have a sour flavor, and most likely no one would know you used your sourdough starter when making them!

Why does my sourdough starter look like pancake batter? ›

It should look like thick pancake batter. After mixing, I mark the jar with a whiteboard marker or a rubber band and cover loosely. Your starter is ready to bake with once it has at least doubled in size, active and bubbly and slightly tangy aroma.

One likely culprit of tough, rubbery pancakes is over-mixing. Keep in mind that sourdough is supposed to be a bit chewy, but they should still have a light and fluffy texture that is enjoyable.

Yes you can add sourdough starter to box cake mix. Adding up to 100g of sourdough discard to your cake mix can add a subtle sourdough tang as well as make your make more moist.

You can either split your starter into a new jar for your friend and feed both as normal ( about 100g of starter and 100g each of water and flour) or spilt some off and give them the discard to feed up. Generally, you don't need more than about 50g of starter to pass on to really get a new starter going.

While some people claim to have healed their gut problems by eating probiotic rich sourdough starter, it's not really advisable. Raw sourdough starter contains uncooked flour which can harbor harmful bacteria among other things. You can read more about why you shouldn't eat raw flour here.

Instead of throwing away (or composting) your excess sourdough starter during the feeding process, bake with it! Unlock the power of sourdough discard to both enhance your bakes with a subtle tang and make the most of those leftovers.

Nope! Once the sourdough starter is established on day 8, all you have to do is just give it flour and water. You no longer need to discard half of it.

Reason #2. You can easily share it with friends, even when they don't live nearby. Reason #3. Any excess, also called the discard, can be dried and ground to powder.

Sprinkle a cast iron skillet, heat it up, and just dump discard in like pancake batter. If you do it while the starter is active, it's thick and can be cut like a pita. If it's right before feeding, it's thinner and can be used like pizza crust.