Sourdough Pancakes (Sour Jacks)
Sourdough is an interesting term; many equate it to the very sour tasting thick crusted bread from San Francisco. But it just refers to things leavened with a noncommercial yeast. There’s plenty that goes into that taste of the sour dough, from micro organisms in the starter to how long you ferment the loaves before baking; even how often you feed your starter. Starter care and chemistry is a whole other post and research project regarding historical use and when I get around to doing that, I’ll link it here in this post as well. For a brief description I feed my starter half whole wheat and half AP flours, I think it makes it stronger and more robust giving me better lift in the end.
I first learned about sour jacks from my husband as they’re his favorite type of pancake, esp. paired with chokecherry syrup, or this new brown rice syrup we’ve been trying (he doesn’t like pure maple flavor). They were basically my first foray into what I’ve been deeming mountain west cuisine. Wyoming has long had a history of being very rural, being one of the states where most of the population still gets most of their food from places other than a grocery store. And its food culture has long been seen as desolate, but underneath that is a rich heritage of foraging and hunting and make do that belies the gruff exterior they put up.
Pancakes! Makes:8-10 4-inch cakes
Ingredients
1 ¼ cups flour
2 T Sugar
1 T Baking Powder
1 ½ t salt
½ cup Starter
1 cup milk
2 eggs beaten
2 T melted butter (optional)
Method
Prepare the dry and wet separately, whisk the dry together, then add the wet. Cover and sit in the fridge overnight. I pull the bowl out first thing the next morning while I get my coffee ready and all my plates and what not together to give the sourdough time to warm back up and get munching (it’s eating of the flour is what makes the gas to leaven the cakes). Cook on medium heat with your preferred fat, they cook basically like normal pancakes lol. I like to cover mine in chokecherry syrup in true crunchy homestead hippy fashion (insert link to post), Bill does half chokecherry and half maple.
