Making Sourdough Pancakes Fluffy
So I made sourdough pancakes last week which turned out delicious. My only problem with them is I wish they were a tad bit fluffier. (FYI - I fed my starter late the night before and made the pancakes using starter at peak conditions) I know these treats tend to be on the heavier side, but I want to experiment with some techniques to get them more fluffy.
One technique I've read is if eggs are called in recipe, separate the yolks and whip the whites. Fold in the whipped whites into batter before cooking. I think this might give some added airiness. Does anyone have experience with this?
My other question involves the use of "acidic" ingredients in a lot of recipes I've found that are suppose to interact with any baking soda that is used. Many times recipes will call for honey or maple syrup (which is what I used in my batch this weekend) which do carry acidic properties, but definitely not as much as a vinegar or lemon. I was thinking of souring a small amount of milk with apple cider vinegar and seeing what results I can get.
Another note I've read is that the pancakes should be cooked immediately and the batter shouldn't sit (as with any product with baking soda) since the reactions with soda and acid happed immediately after mixing.
Any other thoughts, techniques, advice for lightening their sourdough cakes?
the separated egg technique with sourdough waffles. It seems to work well for me. I would think it would work well in pancakes, too.
If you are using sourdough, you have plenty of acid for the baking soda - but you are correct, batters with baking soda should be baked right away. So what I generally do is beat the egg whites and during or immediately before I fold them in, I add the baking soda.
I've added a small hit of commercial yeast to my waffle batter shortly prior to using it. Seems to lighten them a bit.
Hope this helps.
i use that technique for pancakes. It works. It's especially good for multigrain pancakes.
I usually mix up the starter with extra flour and water and leave it out (covered) overnight, then in the morning add the egg, sugar, oil and baking soda and cook straight away and they end up really nice and fluffy. Are you using just starter, or mixing it with extra flour and water? If you're mixing it I'd suggest leaving it out overnight to ferment a little before adding the extra ingredients
buttermilk pancakes. No need to separate the eggs and beat the whites separately. Just make the overnight SD batter with buttermilk and add the egg, sugar and baking soda in the morning right before you make them. If you want to let it sit and thicken then use some baking powder.
Thanks for the responses.
I made another batch of these this weekend and whipped my egg whites. I also added a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar to some milk and let that sour a it before adding to the mixture. The results were much better than the weekend before. I had a nice size griddle going so I got most of the batter cooking immediately.
I also added just a tad of extra flour (to the starter I had let ferment overnight) and some baking powder. I think this helped a bit.
I've been going a similar direction with some rye flat breads for maximum lift.
"I also added just a tad of extra flour (to the starter I had let ferment overnight)..."
taking obsevations to ideas...
One of those observations: Adding flour to thicken a ripe starter to extend the peak on the starter. It gives a nice immediate consistancy to the starter. Foamy and rich without being a dough. A foamy batter.