It involves creating a sponge you let sit overnight, which is ready to use when you wake up and are anxious for breakfast.
Sponge:
- 241 g unfed sourdough starter (you can pull this when you take your starter out of the fridge to feed it)
- 241 g AP flour
- 454 g Buttermilk
- 28 g sugar
Mix this up in the evening, cover with plastic wrap and let it sit on the counter overnight.
In the morning, it should look something like this, with plenty of bubbles.
Pancake Batter:
- All of the overnight sponge
- 50 g of melted butter or oil (I have only used butter)
- 5 g baking soda
- 4 g Kosher salt
- 2 large eggs
Beat the eggs and melted butter together and add to the overnight sponge:
To this add the baking soda and salt. Mix. The original recipe suggests it will bubble up, but I haven't noticed.
This is now ready to use. Feel free to add anything to this like walnuts, blueberries, strawberries, etc.
Pour some mix into a hot buttered skillet. Turn when the top bubbles up:
This recipe probably makes about 8 or so pancakes depending on size, but I cant really eat any more than 2. You can store the left over batter for at least a couple of days in the fridge.
Make sure you get some real Grade A VT maple syrup. No offense meant, but Aunt Jemima just is NOT maple syrup. BTW, my wife taught me the true art of dipping the pancake into a ramekin of warm maple syrup as opposed to pouring the syrup over the pancakes.
"One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well." Virginia Woolf
It looks like King Arthur isn't selling their pretzel salt at this time. Here is another link for pretzel salt.
My grandma used to be a cook in a lumber camp in the 20s and 30s. She made a lot of camp goodies (long Johns, molasses and sugar cookies) for us as kids, but never her pancakes. If I remember right, she would save some of the batter for the next days cakes and probably the reason she never made them for us as she didn't have a starter to use. The starter was added to the next days cakes and would sit on the upper shelf of her wood stove. I vaguely remember her talking about adding vinegar to milk to add to the cakes. Probably a make shift buttermilk I would guess.
We always go camping in the Upper Penninsula of Michigan during wild blueberry time and make buttermilk pancakes containing copious amounts of wild blueberries and homemade maple syrup as the topping. Kathy, though usually a vegetarian become a 'baconarian' during that time as we also bring some old fashioned bacon too.
Now I see I have to work on these sourdough buttermilk cakes. ;-)
Thx again.
Wow, great memories. Thanks for sharing.
Adding vinegar would turn milk (skim milk) into buttermilk, which is pretty much how "cultured buttermilk" is made these days by adding an acid and letting the bacteria grow. Can't really find buttermilk anymore that hasn't been "cultured".
We have blueberry bushes in our backyard in Maine so I am looking forward to adding them to the mix this summer.
@ skflyfish, what great food memories! Now that is good eating!!
@ Elliot, in reply to #3 Eeewwwwwww
also, thanks for the link to pretzel salt.
The sourdough pancakes look awesome! Must try that - but not for a little while. I'm moving again, this time from Cape Cod to Santa Fe. Sadly, I think it's easier to get blue corn meal on the Cape than Maine blueberries in New Mexico.
When I was a kid and we first moved to Santa Fe from Pennsylvania we used to fly back and forth with coolers. Pennsylvania to New Mexico they were full of lobster meat, scrapple, and Dad's favorite deli meats. Coming back they were full of chiles and tortillas.
There is wonderful food everywhere. I've been really lucky.
I won't miss any Cape restaurants much (though the lobster omelet at the Mills is yummy). I will miss trips down to New Hope,PA, where I lived for 25 years, to see friends and eat at Tastebuds, the best restaurant in town, and one of the places that taught me new ways to think about food.
(sorry to hijack the thread! please return to your pancakes now)
Self-taught chef (still in training!).
Welcome to the site.
In order to embed links, all you do is copy the url address you are trying to embed and click on the icon on the 3rd row down (up top) and 3rd from the right that looks like a chain link.
Here is the link you were referring to from Carl Griffith. It does look like the key difference in the recipes is the substitution of buttermilk in mine for the water.
Cheers
How was that plank Elliot? lol
I plan to make these pancakes this weekend, they look and sound fabulous. copy/ save and thanks again Elliot.
Elliot, I've noticed that the bowl in your pictures is metal. Everything that I've read about keeping a starter says that it should never touch metal, so I have always been careful to use plastic or glass containers and I stir it with wooden spoons or silicone spatulas. I've wondered if the metal thing was just an old wives tale. Any ideas? Your batter looks rather lively, and that sat in metal overnight; correct?
I used to use a ceramic bowl but over time just found using my stainless bowls a lot easier and more convenient. I had read that you should not use metal but I had also read that it didnt make a difference. In all of Jacob's bread videos (at least the earlier ones on FCS.com) he always used metal bowls so I figured if it was good enough for him then so be it. I never have any trouble getting my starter active, but I always feed it in the original plastic container I use to store it in the fridge.
For the pancakes, I do the same thing using my stainless bowls and there is plenty of activity in that batter so I guess I will keep on using them. In the mean time, I think I'll do a little research on the topic and let you know what I find out.
@ Elliot, my batter is sitting on the counter, resting and waiting for tomorrow!
Looks like we both began our sponges at about the same time! Last night I threw caution to the wind and mixed the sponge with a metal spoon.....baby steps. Guess I'm a little gun shy lol.
This morning the batter looks and smells delicious in that sourdough kind of way. I'm adding fresh strawberries to them since we are about 20 miles where they have just been picked.
I'll report back to you Elliot, thanks again, and have a great weekend.
I find it easiest to mix everything with a spatula.
Hope yours turned out great. I am now lazing around as the result of eating three this morning.
Sunday January 29, 2012
Day Two :
Yesterday we had these yummy pancakes with fresh strawberries added. Deeelightful.
One thing that we both noticed is that as we cooked the batter, the pancakes got thinner towards the end. Does this happen to you too Elliot?
The leftovers went into a plastic container in the fridge. This morning, they were calling my name, so I got the maple syrup, and poured it over the pancakes, then put them into the microwave. At this point I should tell you that I don't have a clue when it comes to cooking with a microwave. We've only had this one for 4 months, and it's been great for melting butter and heating the maple syrup yesterday. Anyway, the pancakes were delicious and I detected more of a sourdough flavor today.
Re Metal Bowls & Sourdough: I've never had a problem using a metal bowl while making sourdough bread, but I always store my long term starter in a food safe plastic container, for what it's worth.
Cook With Passion!