Sourdough Field Day — Pancakes For a Crowd

Quick post today, just a report, really.  My trusted wild sourdough batch worked hard this week.  We were invited to a Shrove Tuesday at our church and wanted to bring something other than the usual bacon pack.  My husband suggested making sourdough pancakes. I bake those occasionally at home, using this Sourdough Pancakes recipe, which we like a lot.  This time the challenge was to scale the recipe properly to feed the crowd.

It worked out beautifully well. I grew my sourdough over a few days to scale it sevenfold.  Incidentally, I found just the perfect whole wheat/white flour brand at our local grocery store. It made the sourdough grow like mad.  Then the trick was not to overdo the soda, which is added at the last moment.

I enhanced the original recipe by adding coconut oil in place of olive oil. It gave the pancakes nice elasticity and irresistible aroma.  When it was time to add the soda mix (right before baking), I had concerns that my batter bowl may overflow, as the dough rises very rapidly right in front of you once you add soda. And, indeed, the dough had quickly climbed all the way to the rim of the bowl. I had to scoop off some of it and ladle it out onto the griddle, which worked out just great.

The dough’s bubbling action lasted up to the last batch, at which point it finally fell flat. I made about twenty 8-pancake batches, which put me in the 160 pancake ballpark.  I have to give the credit to the church’s griddle — it was set at the perfect temperature and each batch didn’t take longer than 90 seconds to make. Thus, I was done with my entire 2-gallon bowl in about 30 minutes.  Because the dough has some oil in it, the griddle never had to be greased.

Kudos to the kitchen crew, they were very efficient, scooping away the pancake batches as they were ready and adding them to the serving trays, wiping the surfaces, bringing plates. They worked like surgical nurses, I didn’t have to ask for anything even once. Not to mention that they cooked all the bacon and made copious amounts of conventional pancakes.  Impressive!

I definitely recommend this recipe. It works fantastic in both small and large scale.  It’s a perfect way to get rid of your extra sourdough when you refresh it.  I am going to try this recipe next time with buckwheat to see how it transfers.

Sourdough Pancakes

Adapted from What’s Cooking America’s recipe

• 2 cups ripe and active liquid (100% hydration) sourdough starter
• 1 egg
• 2 tbsp sugar (I used white sugar and brown sugar before, with equally good results)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 4 tbsp coconut oil
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tbsp warm water

Make sure your sourdough starter is active and ripe — drop a teaspoon of it in a cup of cold water. If it floats on a surface, it’s ready.  Refresh the sourdough and leave in the warm kitchen overnight to be sure it’s active.

Use a mixing bowl about twice as large as the ingredient list suggests.

Mix sourdough, egg, sugar, salt and oil at once. If your kitchen is cold, you may need to warm up the coconut oil just slightly to make it liquid. Whisk nicely until everything is combined well.

Heat your griddle or a skillet on medium high, un-greased.

Right before baking pancakes, mix baking soda and warm water and gently fold into the batter. You will see that the batter will “bloom” rapidly, it will swell quickly in front of you, turning into delicate bubbly foam within seconds.

Now you are ready to scoop the pancakes onto the skillet. Bake pancakes on both sides. If you set the temperature just right, it shouldn’t take more than a minute or 90 seconds per batch. Use a thin spatula to flip and remove pancakes from the skillet.

Serve warm with sour cream, yogurt, butter, syrup, fruit, honey, jam, of whatever your heart desires.