Fluffy pancakes with sourdough starter

Pancakes are, without a doubt, one of the most amazing breakfast foods ever invented. For those with sensitive tummies, my fluffy pancakes with sourdough starter are the perfect addition to your breakfast table. 

Fingers crossed it’s breakfast time when you’re reading this! In the past year, fluffy pancakes with sourdough starter have become somewhat of a staple in our household. While I regularly use my sourdough starter to make fresh bread, like my same day sourdough loaf or a delicious wholewheat rye sourdough bread, I love a quick recipe that lets me incorporate fermented goodness without the wait time. 

For my family, pancakes are an all day, every day meal. Living a busy life with lots of activities and full time jobs, feeding a bunch of fussy eaters isn’t always easy. Thankfully, a serve of fluffy pancakes with sourdough starter is a super quick and easy way to fill my little girls up. With a blend of filling flour and eggs, fermented sourdough starter, a cup of milk and a ton of healthy toppings it’s the perfect meal for when we need some quick, satisfying food in our tummies. 

While I have a bunch of different pancake recipes, which I’ll eventually share on this blog, these fluffy pancakes with sourdough starter are the one my kids have learned to make themselves. In typical kid fashion, their creations are usually covered in syrup and berries. What is great about this recipe though is that the tangy sourdough flavours also pair incredibly well with savoury toppings. My personal favourite is to cut them into thin strips and serve them with soup. Give it a try and make them with my courgette and basil soup or my onion soup for busy mums. You’ll be amazed at how delicious it is!

Sourdough pancake ingredients

Sourdough often means fermentation and while that’s generally true, we’re working with the already fermented sourdough discard in this recipe. To be perfectly honest, it won’t matter too much if you’re using starter that’s been left unfed for a while, or one that’s happily bubbling. The end result will be delicious either way. Aside from sourdough starter, here’s what else you will need:

All purpose flour, an obvious base ingredient

Milk, to add moisture and give the dough the right consistency

Eggs, to bind your ingredients together

Baking powder, to make your pancakes light and fluffy

Baking soda, to help the baking powder do its job

Vanilla extract, for sweetness without the sugar

How to make my fluffy pancakes with sourdough starter from scratch

In a large bowl, mix the all purpose flour, baking powder and baking soda together using a handheld whisk.

Add the vanilla extract, eggs and milk. Mix until well combined.

Place a large frying pan on your stove and turn it on high heat. Allow the pan to heat up for 2 or 3 minutes before adding a little butter to it.

Once the butter has melted, add just enough batter to the pan to coat the bottom of the pan. I usually add one scoop of batter and then tilt the pan until the dough is spread evenly.

Allow the edges of the pancake to brown before turning it. Bake until both sides are evenly golden.

Repeat this process until all batter is used up.

Serve immediately with your favourite toppings.

Fluffy pancakes with sourdough starter Tips and Tricks

Add more milk. I personally love my pancakes quite thin. When ladling your dough into the pan, your dough should be thin enough to run to the edges of the pan simply by tilting the pan. To achieve this, you may need to add more milk than the recipe calls for. 

Let the pan heat up first. One mistake I used to make for years was to rush the first pancake. Pancakes turn out best when the pan is super hot. Just because your butter can melt, doesn’t mean your pan is ready yet. Let your pan sit on the hot plate for a few minutes until you can feel the heat radiate off it. Depending on your stove, this may take between 2 and 3 minutes. Then add a little butter to belt before pouring the batter for your first pancake. 

Adjust the heat during the cooking process. While it’s important to work with a hot pan, after the first two or three pancakes you may notice your pancakes turning a little bit too dark. When that happens, lower the temperature of your stovetop a little bit. On my electric stove I like to start on a 9 as the highest setting, and then lower the heat to a 7 once the first few pancakes are ready.

Get decorating. What makes a delicious pancake even better? That’s right, toppings. Just like any other pancake, these fluffy pancakes with sourdough starter are superb with maple syrup. But for days where you have a little extra time to decorate, some yoghurt, banana and honey could be a great option. I like to add a handful of crunchy granola on top, or layer them with cottage cheese and jam. 

More breakfast and sourdough recipes

If you love my fluffy pancakes with sourdough starter, why not try some other breakfast recipes? My crunchy homemade granola or mixed berry smoothie bowl are a great starting point. 

If you have even more sourdough starter to use, try some of my sourdough recipes:

Sourdough oatmeal cookies

Same day sourdough loaf

Sourdough zucchini loaf 

Wholewheat rye sourdough loaf

Sourdough discard carrot cake

Frequently Asked Questions

What else can you do with sourdough starter?

Sourdough starter is the ideal ingredient for any recipe containing flour. Once you start to get familiar with your starter’s consistency and rising powers, you will quickly explore other recipes. My everyday favourites are crunchy and delicious sourdough loaves, as well as these super quick sourdough pancakes. But I also love to have a batch of sourdough cookies readily available. Other meals to incorporate sourdough starter in are cakes, homemade pastas, pies or crumbles. 

Why does my sourdough starter look like pancake batter?

Sourdough starter and pancake batter can easily be mistaken for one another – at least at first glance. Sourdough starter itself is nothing more than flour and water mixed together. While pancake batter has a few more ingredients, it is in essence also just flour and liquids mixed together. Your sourdough starter might still look a little clumpy at first, especially if it has just beed fed. Once the yeast has eaten its way through the fresh flour, it will however turn quite liquid and batter like. 

Can you eat fried sourdough starter?

Yes you can. Fried sourdough starter might not be the tastiest meal you will ever have, but it certainly won’t harm you either. With sourdough starter consisting of only water and flour, you’re essentially making yourself a tangy flat bread. Give it a try and see what you think. With a few added herbs and spices, and a generous pinch of salt, it may even become a go to afternoon snack. 

When should you not use sourdough starter?

When getting familiar with sourdough, you soon realise that sourdough starter can find a place in almost any recipe. Nevertheless, there are a few occasions where sourdough starter shouldn’t be used. Growing sourdough starter from scratch will take you between 7 and 10 days. In this time, your starter is not strong enough to let baked goods rise yet. Nature simply hasn’t had enough time to let the flour ferment yet. While it is recommended to discard sourdough starter during the first stages of its life, I wouldn’t encourage you to use this discard in recipes yet. 

The second occasion when not to use sourdough starter is a very obvious one. You shouldn’t use your starter if it’s gone mouldy. Sourdough starters, once matured enough, are very robust and need very little care to be maintained. It can however sometimes happen that bacteria has entered the jar and contaminated it, causing your starter to grow mould. This is one of the only times where you should not be using your starter. Instead, it might be time to start a new batch.

Do you have to discard sourdough starter every time you feed it?

Technically you don’t have to, no. It will however mean that you are left with a huge jar of starter once it has matured, which could be hard to maintain. The purpose of discarding sourdough starter during the growing process it to keep your starter jar at a reasonable amount. Many recipes will therefore opt for only 50g of flour per feed. Keep in mind that you feed your starter its own weight of flour and water at each feed. Starting with 50g of flour and not discarding any of your starter will leave you with almost 73kg of starter after just a week. Safe to say that by that time you would need to discard a large portion of it to store and maintain your starter. It is therefore best to continuously discard your starter during the growing phase and have one small, healthy jar of sourdough starter to work with.