Eating Healthier in Today's World

Sourdough Recipes - Beyond the Loaf

As I have mentioned before, sourdough can be used in many other recipes beyond bread to give a wonderful flavour but can also be substituted for the rising agent in the recipe such as baking powder and baking soda.    There is definitely much more a sourdough starter can be used for beyond bread.

Pancakes- Probably one of the most popular uses besides bread, for sourdough starter, ismaking pancakes.  If you have some leftover starter from a bread making session, certainly making pancakes is an easy way to use up the extra.  Our pioneer fore-fathers probably survived on sourdough probably in the form of pancakes.  Fortunately today we do not have to go to those extremes to hava a great breakfast with sourdough pancakes.  There are two ways to do it-  overnight soak on the flour which will give you a higher fluffier pancake as in these Fluffy Overnight Sourdough Pancakes.  If you would like your pancakes now then go for the quick pancake recipe like the Basic Sourdough Pancakes which are quick and easy to make.   We even have a gluten free version of pancakes in our Gluten Free Sourdough Lemon and Blueberry Pancakes.

Waffles and Other Breakfast Foods - The sourdough starter can also be used to make Waffles or even crepes.  Check our our recipe for Sourdough Sour Cream Waffles or Rye Sourdough Crepes.

Crackers-  How do you like your crackers?  Crunchy? Salty? Buttery?  Try this Seeded Rye Sourdough Cracker recipe and you will be a fan for life!

Muffins-  Great for breakfast or even just a snack at mid-day, muffins have a big following especially when they have that extra special flavour of sourdough.  You will get a tender muffin without the need to add buttermilk from this Basic Sourdough Muffin recipe.  You just add the flavour you want like raisins, or nuts or poppy seed etc.

Desserts - Many people are not aware that sourdough can enhance baked goods that are sweet as well as savory.  The sweet flavour is actually enhanced by the sourdough tang which plays up the sweetness of the baked goods.  Try our this Sourdough Applesauce Cake or these Sourdough Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Everything Else-  Ever thought of making Sourdough Tortillas or even Sourdough English Muffins?  Even a Deep Dish Sourdough Pizza can easily be made using the starter as the levening agent.    Your favourite pie crust can be made aw well, with the addition of Sourdough.  Check out this Sourdough Pastry recipe.  And we can't forget the popular historic Quick Sourdough Biscuits that have nourished families from 100 years ago until now.

Adapting Sourdough to Your Own Recipes- If you are only interested in adding the tang of sourdough to your pancakes or biscuits then you could substitute one cup of sourdough starter for the equivalent amounts of flour and water, by weight. This gets a little tricky when you have a recipe that contains a very small amount of milk to begin with because you are substituting water for something that contains fats, proteins, and carbohydrates (milk).

Also keep in mind that your sourdough starter will act as an acidic element to a recipe. So if you are using a recipe that calls for buttermilk you may be able to use regular milk instead since your sourdough will provide the acidic element for baking soda to react with.

Longer-Soaked Quick Breads-  You can use the sourdough starter to create a longer-soaked (fermented) quick bread. by using a method similar to substiuting the sourdough for the yeast like in the method above.   Simply replace your water and flour by weight with your 100% hydration starter.

So if you wanted to make something like sourdough biscuits you would replace flour and liquid with your sourdough starter, along with the baking soda and baking powder (which you will use less of than in most recipes), then allow the culture to raise the biscuits for 4+ hours,

 For a thinner battered quick bread such as pancakes you can actually use straight-up sourdough starter without any additional flour or water. You may want to alter the hydration level of your sourdough to produce a thinner of thicker pancake as desired, but no long soaking time is needed since you aren’t using any additional flour.

As with other elements of sourdough baking, you will want to play with recipes in order to achieve your desired results. With these tidbits in mind, though, you should be able to manipulate any of your favorite recipes to utilize sourdough.