The Fugue

My family is really into sourdough biscuits and sourdough pancakes. But to be honest, the recipes they use are a bit peculiar. You’ve probably never seen pancakes or biscuits like these, but you end up loving them anyway. I’m going to talk about the pancakes here and ignore the biscuits which are generally regarded to be the epitome of perfection by all who consume them.

Here’s the recipe they use for sourdough pancakes:

Note that last bit: “approximately 80 small pancakes.… Remember that sourdough pancakes have a very firm texture, and are entirely different from the pancakes you are used to.” They’re small, white, rubbery, sour, and delicious. But you see, I’m really only interested in the sour and delicious parts. I have no investment in them being small, white, and rubbery.

So when Joe Pastry (a food blogger I have immense respect for) started talking about sourdough pancakes, and showed pictures of normal brown pancakes that I’m sure were sour, delicious, and not rubbery, I had to try it out.

And so I did, this morning. I followed his recipe, except I halved it (yes, I halved an egg) and made it with whole wheat flour (as he discusses at the end of the post). The pancakes were excellent. All the requisite sourdough taste and deliciousness, and normal pancake size/color/texture. Plus it was a lot of fun to watch the batter foam up when I added the soda water.

So if you make small white rubbery sourdough pancakes (that means you, family), give his recipe a try and see if you don’t like it even better.

Then I recommend you read the follow-up post on the science behind sourdough pancakes. And for extra credit, compare the two recipes and hypothesize on why the results are so different.