Sourdough Discard Pancakes
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Make these fluffy sourdough pancakes using your sourdough starter discard and a few common ingredients you're sure to have on hand. You can make the batter the night before and pop into the fridge for quick easy pancakes in the morning, with all the benefits of long fermentation (the flavor and texture of long fermented sourdough pancakes is definitely one to try). They are also perfect to mix and cook right away too if you need a pancakes fast!
My kids LOVE fluffy pancakes so these are a regular meal at our house (it's totally acceptable to serve sourdough pancakes for dinner sometimes in my house). While I don't necessarily need to discard in order to maintain my mature sourdough starter, I feed it a little extra to make sure I am able to make these whenever the need arises. If you are still making a sourdough starter, you will need to discard regularly to ensure your starter thrives (read more about why you must discard sourdough starter).
Why You'll Love This Recipe!
You'll love this discard recipe because you can make these overnight long fermented or mix and cook straight away. I love making them the night before and allowing them to ferment a little before we cook them for breakfast. It's an easy way to get some of the good stuff into my growing boys, served alongside these sourdough scrambled eggs.
Ingredients
- Sourdough Starter - you can use sourdough discard or active starter, it's really up to you. I just use whatever I have on hand! Check out my instruction for how to make a sourdough starter.
- All Purpose Flour - you can sub up to 100g whole wheat flour. If you want to use more whole wheat flour than this, I recommend these whole wheat sourdough pancakes.
- Milk - use any type of milk you prefer, even non dairy milk will work in this recipe. If you have a lot of buttermilk on hand from making homemade butter or cultured butter, this is a perfect substitute too.
- Butter - you'll need melted butter, I've used salted as always, but feel free to use unsalted butter if you prefer.
- Granulated Sugar
- Egg
- Baking Powder - not baking soda.
- Salt - just a pinch, leave it out if you really want to (I add salt to pretty much everything)
- Vanilla Extract
How To Make Sourdough Discard Pancakes
Pancakes are one of the easiest sourdough discard recipes out there! You can choose to make giant pancakes, regular sized or even mini pancakes (these are perfect for packed lunches).
Add the sourdough starter, milk, egg, butter, vanilla and sugar to a large bowl. Whisk well until just combined.
Now add the remaining ingredients (all purpose flour, baking powder and salt) to the liquid ingredients and whisk until a batter forms. This batter is ready to use straight away, but can be fermented overnight in the refrigerator if you want to (I've added notes for this in the recipe card at the bottom of this post).
You can cook your homemade pancakes in a large frying pan or skillet.
Kate's Recipe Tips
- Let all the bubbles fully form on the surface before you flip them over. A lower heat is better as it lets the bubbles develop without burning the outside.
Oven Baked Sourdough Discard Pancakes
If we are really in a hurry in the morning, I sometimes oven bake our pancakes. You'll find the full instructions for sourdough discard sheet pan pancakes here. I place a sheet of parchment paper into a shallow tray or roasting pan and then pour the pancake batter into it.
If I have time I'll sprinkle some frozen berries and shredded coconut on the top. But they are great plain too.
I bake in a moderate oven for around 15 to 30 minutes. The batter is very forgiving so it's hard to muck them up! This method works whether you make the batter and bake immediately or make the batter the night before. Once baked, I just cut them into squares and the kids love them! They cook up nice and fluffy.
Our Favorite Toppings
Breakfast is a big deal in our house! Along with sourdough pancakes, we also love sourdough waffles, sourdough crepes and this sourdough Dutch baby pancake. And all of these things need toppings, right! Here are our favorite toppings for sourdough pancakes:
- Freshly whipped cream and berries are always welcome, but if you want to add frozen berries to the actual pancakes, add them just before you flip the pancakes. Raspberries and blueberries work really well in this manner.
- Fancy butter - For something extra indulgent, we love our sourdough pancakes topped with whipped maple butter, whipped honey cinnamon butter or this whipped brown butter! These butters all work really well on sourdough bread too!
- Ice cream - to make these sourdough pancakes extra special, add a big scoop of your favorite ice cream on top.
How To Store + Freeze
Fridge - These pancakes are suitable to cook the day before and store in the fridge. You can microwave them in the morning for a quick and easy breakfast.
Freeze - You can freeze the cooked pancakes. Wait until they are cool and then freeze with pieces of parchment paper in between so they don't stick together. A ziplock bag is perfect for this.
Frequently Asked Questions
If you have a Thermomix, these sourdough discard pancakes are even easier to make. You can place all the ingredients into the bowl at the same time. Mix on speed 4 for about a minute and voila - easiest Thermomix sourdough discard pancakes ever!
Sourdough pancakes do have a more complex flavor than regular pancakes. You can taste the sourdough discard for sure. You will get a more pronounced sourdough flavor if you ferment the pancake batter in the fridge overnight.
Sourdough Discard Pancakes
Video
Equipment
- Mixing Bowl
- Frying Pan
Ingredients
- 100 g Sourdough starter discard
- 200 g All Purpose Flour you can sub up to 100g whole wheat flour
- 200 g Milk you can sub with buttermilk if you'd like (see notes)
- 50 g Butter Melted
- 40 g Sugar
- 1 Egg
- 8 g Baking Powder
- 3 g Salt (a pinch of salt)
- 5 g Vanilla Extract
Instructions
- Add the sourdough starter, milk, egg, butter, vanilla and sugar to a bowl. Whisk well until just combined.
- Now add the flour, baking powder and salt to the liquid ingredients and whisk until well combined and a batter forms.
- This batter is ready to use straight away (see notes below if you want to ferment the batter overnight).
- Heat a large frying pan and add a little oil and butter to grease it. Cook the pancakes to your desired size (use a mini soup ladle to scoop out the mixture). Let all the bubbles fully form on the surface before you flip them over. A lower heat is better as it lets the bubbles develop without burning the outside.
Notes
- Add the Sourdough Starter, sugar, milk and flour together in a bowl and mix until well combined. Leave it on the counter overnight (it's perfectly safe to leave the milk overnight, however if you're worried it can go in the fridge for up to 24 hours).
- In the morning, add eggs, baking powder, melted butter, salt and vanilla essence and mix well until it forms a batter.
- The batter made this way will be quite stretchy because of the overnight fermentation of the flour.
- Cook as instructed in the regular recipe above.
Nutrition
This is a great recipe. I did not overnight ferment. I halved it since I was just going to make some for my son. It made about 4 pancakes. I agree with the other commenters about reducing the sugar. I reduced the sugar to 12g and salt to 2g. I also used vanilla powder instead of vanilla extract since I had some on hand. They were delicious. Still a bit too sweet so next time maybe I will reduce it to 10g. The texture was light and fluffy and you can’t taste any sourness which is what I was going for.
Made these a couple of days ago and they were some of the best pancakes I've ever had. I did mess up and accidentally added everything at the same time, but they still came out wonderfully. I didn't use all the batter the first day so I just added a little milk the next morning to thin it back out(it got super thick) and they were just as good as the 1st day.
We loved this recipe !! I’m excited to try different variations using almond milk instead of milk. My hubby and kiddos ate them up !!
I am excited to make these. Baking sounds perfect for a busy mom. Would I set the oven to 350? Is that a moderate oven?
Can you sub honey or maple syrup for the suave? If so how much would you use? Thank you
Excellent!!!
Comes tomorrow morning this is breakfast. I would love to add some mini chocolate chips and was wondering how much would be the best amount to add without destroying the batter.
My absolute favorite sourdough pancake recipe, we make them sheet pan pancakes most of the time to save time and all 6 of us gobble it up!
can I replace the egg with a chia egg? I'm going to bake on a sheet pan.
We haven't tried it with a chia egg, but it could work. It just may not be as fluffy.
These pancakes are the best I’ve ever made! And I love being able to freeze them for breakfast during the week!
Best pancakes I’ve ever made! They are so so fluffy and taste perfectly sweet, not tangy at all. If you like the tangy factor, do the overnight ferment option 🙂
My husband isn’t the biggest pancake fan and said these are the best pancakes he’s ever had. Absolutely delicious and a great way to use up that discard!! Definitely will be making these again and again.
What temperature did you bake these in the oven for?
220C (430F) should do it 🙂
I love these pancakes sooo much! Can't stop making them. I want to use vegetable oil instead of butter. Can I do that?
Hello! I’m excited to try! Can the discard be cold? I keep my sourdough discard in the fridge.
This is my new go-to pancake recipe. So light and fluffy! If I want them extra sour I double the amount of discard and make the batter the night before.
I just made this recipe for my husband and myself. We DEVOURED them! So easy to make and SO DELICIOUS!! Thank you for sharing your wonderful recipes.
We are vegan so if we leave the egg out and use plant based milk and butter, will there be an issue? Use more baking powder for leavening or is the egg a binder of sorts? Thanks for your recipes.
I haven't tried without egg I'm sorry. I would try subbing some banana for the egg thought, that should work 🙂
Wow, the yummiest and easiest pancake recipe I've ever tried. Officially my go to recipe. I wish I doubled the recipe the night before.
These were delicious! I used discard and made right away. The recipe made eight 4-5" pancakes, not 20. Mine do appear to be the same thickness as the ones pictured.
Made these today for the first time, batter was a bit thick, but my first test pancake was excellent! I did add a bit more milk after the first one, and used my homemade vanilla paste ( as I was at my daughters and didn’t want to use store bought vanilla..lol), grandsons loved them! I will have to make more and leave here, as I traveled with my sourdough..some were requested with fresh blueberries and of course delicious! Definitely a keeper and one in my rotation of sourdough recipes!
A great way to use discard. Tried both-overnight and ready to use and both are just so delicious. I can't stop eating them. I make the batch, freeze the extra pancakes and have them fo the next 5 days for breakfast. Thanks for the recipe. Outstanding.
I made these as directed except I used oat milk. I had to add a little water to thin the pancakes out a bit because the batter was too thick, probably from the oat milk. They were very good and had a wonderful flavor.
We love this recipe so much that we have vowed not to use any other recipe! It’s perfect! It’s like bringing the best pancake house to our home! (We have only ever done the fermented recipe since it’s nice to split the work over two days).
Have you ever tried using rye flour? We are fans of it and wasn’t sure if you had found a measurement that didn’t dry out the batter. If not, I may just experiment myself.
These are some of the best pancakes I've ever had! They are so fluffy. I recommend subbing some of the AP flour for whole wheat. Delicious!
These blew my expectations away. Absolutely will be using my discard for this again.
I make these with GF flour and they are fabulous!
Can you use water instead of milk?
You can, but the milk helps with flavor and fluffiness.
Mine was a fail, turned out gummy. What did I do wrong?
Best of about 5 similar recipes I've tried. I'll be adjusting the sugar down next time as they were a touch sweet for our tastes, and also trying the dairy free option for my son. Quantity in the recipe may be slightly off, 1x made 10 pancakes around 15cm diameter.
Can I use coconut milk in the recipe?
Yep! You can sub coconut milk for the milk.