Thursday, January 1, 2009

A Sour(Dough) Start to the Year

Happy New Year, everyone!! Hopefully nobody is coping with too much of a rough morning after last night's festivities... I myself had a delicious sushi dinner with Andrew followed by a channel-surfing / DVD fest for my party. Yeah, that's about as festive as I get these days... but with our anniversary coming up in just a week we'll have another day of revelry in store.

I can't claim to be a pancake master... that honour goes to my dad and our old, propane-driven Coleman stove on a damp Summer morning. However, I do love cooking breakfasts for Andrew and my sister when I can. This morning I was in the mood for taking requests and since my sister was at a friends place Andrew was the lucky (?) customer! Having just run out of my stash of multigrain pancake mix (yes, the horror of the mix rears it's ugly head... so be it!) and with a need to refresh the good ol' sourdough starter (I can't believe I've kept it alive for 7 months - sheesh, my houseplants don't usually last that long!), I delved into one of my mom's old bread cookbooks and came up with this recipe.

Well, sort of this recipe. I cut down the sugar (from 1 1/2 tbsp) and the fat (from 1 tbsp melted lard) to a more manageable 2 tsp and 1 tsp, respectively. I also swapped a healthier canola oil for the lard (and let's face it, lard is just icky). Since my starter is a medley (or mutt, if you will) of flours, I just used "whole wheat" as a baseline in my calculations. My blend is currently about 50% whole wheat, 25% all-purpose and 25% rye flour, though it changes every time I refresh it based on what falls on me when I open my pantry doors.

Though Andrew likes his pancakes plain (or with a small amount of butter), I was always a sweet - toothed gal. For me, it was maple syrup (when we could get it cheap), and lots of it, on my hotcakes. Slightly more embarassing is that off maple season, you would find me smothering my (Aunt Jemima-mix) pancakes and (home-made) waffles with not table syrup but golden corn syrup. I ate peanut butter sandwiches with it too, and drenched (otherwise dry) pieces of toast in it. Sugar rush, anyone??

Superb Sourdough Pancakes
Makes enough for one hungry person or two lesser appetites
1 cup whole-wheat sourdough starter
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 egg
1 tsp canola oil
  1. Heat a griddle over medium heat.
  2. In a bowl or large measuring cup, combine all the ingredients, mixing gently.
  3. Grease the griddle and ladle 3-4 dollops into it.
  4. When the batter has air holes peaking through, flip the cakes over.
  5. When the steam is mostly gone, they should be ready.
Amount Per Serving
Calories: 350.2
Total Fat: 10.6 g
Cholesterol: 212.5 mg
Sodium: 66.0 mg
Total Carbs: 52.6 g
Dietary Fiber: 7.3 g
Protein: 14.5 g

3 comments :

  1. Quote of the year: "lard is just icky."

    You should try peanut-butter plus apple sauce plus maple syrup. Yum! You need less maple that way, get in a wee bit of protein, and it's just plain good. :)

    Happy new year to you!

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  2. Mmmm yum! I have a brand new sourdough culture sitting on my bench (hopefully doing it's thing the way it should be). Definitely bookmarking these for when it's ready!

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  3. just gotta say- at least lard is wholistic. The amount of processing put into making canola oil a palatable commodity is just ironic.

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Thanks for the feedback!