Monday, August 27, 2007

Back-To-School and SOURDOUGH PANCAKES!

My Sprouts started school today, and in a burst of domestic-Betty-Crocker-like inspiration I offered to make pancakes! (You have to understand, none of us are morning people around here. Muffins and smoothies are usually our grab-n-go breakfast of choice - and necessity.) Pancakes are usually reserved for weekends.


But... I'm the lucky owner of sourdough starter now, and I was just dying to try it out!
See, last week, I happened on the positively drool-worthy sourdough pancakes and waffles over on VegChic's Blog.
.
So of course, I had to whine about wanting my own sourdough starter. Well, Jody was wonderful and generous enough to actually send me some starter!!
.
Starter in the MAIL? In the summer? I imagined exploding packages and messy mailboxes and wasn't all that sure it would work.
But she had heard that you can dry some of the starter out into a dry dough and ship it, and it can be resurrected into liquid starter with warm water, flour and a few hours of time... It was sort of an experiment for both of us.


Well, when my starter 'dough' arrived, I was excited, but a bit skeptical too - it was just a flat piece of leathery bready dough about the size of my hand - was this really going to work?
.
I slowly added warm water and flour until the leathery dough was incorporated into the liquid, per instructions, and just a few hours later, my starter was bubbling away all happy-like.

So, this morning I made pancakes for my kids and they turned out perfect and wonderful and fluffy and yummy!
.
THANKS SO MUCH VEGCHIC!
.
Sourdough Pancakes

1 cup soymilk
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sourdough starter
At least 6 hours before using, stir together starter, milk and 1/2 cup flour.
Let stand out overnight.
When ready to cook, preheat griddle, add remaining ingredients to sour dough batter. Adjust flour or soymilk to make correct consistancy. (You can let the dough rest for an hour here if you want, I didn't.)
Pour a scoop of batter for each pancake onto lightly oiled griddle.
Cook aprox. two minutes on each side.
.
I didn't have any whole-wheat flour, I think that would have made them a bit more hearty, (the way I like pancakes), but my kids thought they were in Heaven with "white pancakes". And hey, I was dying to try the starter, so I figured it was a good excuse. We even had REAL maple syrup to go with! (Major luxury around here!).

So that's how we started our Back-To-School day. The sourdough starter is bubbling away again and everyone's well fed and happy.

Oh.
Except the dog.
.
Pffft.
He managed to dig quite a large hole in our gravel driveway and in the process of destroying the driveway, ripped a good chunk off one of the pads on his front paw.
.
Ouch! Did you not notice you were hurting yourself, silly pup?
.
He has to wear a 'lampshade' collar for a few days to give that paw a chance to heal. Of course he's so humiliated all he will do is look at me disdainfully, sulk on the couch and grunt little complaining sounds...

13 comments:

Amy said...

Oh NO! Poor puppy. Blow him a kiss better from me (he's adorable by the way, I think I'm in love, no wait, I KNOW I'm in love with him!).

Your pancakes look yummy. I'll have to try a new sourdough once we move. I made 2 of them, they went bubbly and awesome so I put them in the fridge to keep and forgot all about them. I found them the other day with a layer of brown liquid on top that was bigger than the starter in the bottom of the jar! Whoops!

Vegan_Noodle said...

Mmmmm, pancakes! Lucky girls on their first day of school!!
Never made sourdough anything...can you buy sourdough starter at the grocery store?

Amy said...

Thanks for visiting my blog!

I've made sourdough waffles in the past based on a recipe that uses cow's milk and yeast. There is no sourdough starter involved. You leave the mixed batter out overnight and the milk sours a bit. They are delicious but I am not sure it would work the same with soymilk. (I still use milk in my coffee but use soymilk elsewhere.)

I liked to serve the waffles with a fruit sauce, which just means heating some kind of berry, a little sweetener, and a little water until it becomes sauce-like.

Unknown said...

Be my mommy and make pancakes for me!!

Anonymous said...

First off, as a mom, I felt for you as I read about your oldest sprout going away to school. What a wonderful opportunity for her but she's still your baby. I totally understand why you needed comfort food!

Your pup is so cute! He definitely looks irritated to have to wear the collar.

Your pancakes look great -- your starter really perked itself up. I lived up near San Francisco when I was married and developed quite a sourdough bread habit!

Peggy said...

Ooh, I've never had sourdough anything before, but I bet that those were great pancakes!

Heh, I don't start school for another week. :D

Lori- the Pleasantly Plump Vegan said...

wow! sour dough pancakes. sounds pretty amazing. and what a way to start the school year.

bazu said...

Jody rocks! I managed to kill a sourdough starter once (RIP) so I admire anyone who can work with it! And sourdough pancakes sound so good, it's almost worth the end of summer/the beginning of school to get a stack of them!

Melisser; the Urban Housewife said...

Starter in the mail, that's amazing! Sourdough pancakes sound delicious!

Webly said...

Sourdough starter has always interested me. I heard a story of some family that had start that the parents got as a wedding present and it got passed to the kids when they died. Then someone baby sitting killed it a few generations later and it was like their child died.
Wow, I didn't mean that to sound so sad. I just find it interesting how food can be passed down and how important it is to families.

Tofu Queen said...

Great! I just got my starter going and am so glad to find a vegan sourdough pancake recipe without egg replacer!

Nichole said...

these sounded so good! I got my proof together last night and whipped them up this morning and unfortunately I did not have good results. They were so thick (and I didn't even add all the flour you had listed) and I couldn't get them to cook thoroughly in the middle. The batter looked okay, but I don't make pancakes very often so I didn't know what consistency to shoot for. Good flavor though.

If you make these again can you post a picture of your batter and explain the consistency? Everybody's starter's a bit different and I think that might help. Thanks!

Tofu Mom (AKA Tofu-n-Sprouts) said...

I've made these many times since, and they turn out fine, but I admit I really don't follow the liquid amounts too carefully, just add 'till it's "batter-like".
It needs to be "pourable" but not so runny that it goes all over the pan. Next time I make them, I'll check measurements more specifically and make some notes. (Maybe it's time for a whole new blog post - I still use my sourdough starter!)