Sourdough muffins? Sourdough...cake?

January 28, 2010 6:25 AM

Besides bread, what else can I make with my sourdough starter?

I have now successfully gotten my starter going, and I hate throwing half of it away every time I feed it, but there's only so much bread two people can eat. Please give me your tried and true recipes for anything besides plain sourdough bread. Thanks!

posted by Adridne to food & drink (17 answers total)

This blog post for sourdough pancakes just made its way to me this morning, I think you'll find it valuable!
posted by Meagan at 6:32 AM on January 28, 2010

waffles and pancakes
posted by aught at 6:48 AM on January 28, 2010

From the most recent post on the blog Chocolate And Zucchini:

"I learned from the King Arthur Flour website that you could make sourdough crumpets with natural starter. Better yet, the recipe is the kind that every natural starter enthusiast dreams of: one that offers to use up the excess starter that the natural feeding cycle leaves you with. All you need to do is store that extra starter in a container in the fridge -- I've recycled an empty tub of yogurt for that purpose -- until it amounts to roughly a cup (270 grams), which, in my case, takes about three feedings. You mix that with a bit of sugar, salt, and baking soda, and cook the foamy batter like pancakes in a skillet."

The whole post (recipe included) is here.

Chocolate and Zucchini is a lovely little food blog in general -- the author, Clotilde Desoulier, is an utterly charming writer, and she is also comparatively new to food herself (despite the fact that she grew up in Paris, she didn't start really getting into food until she was 20 and moved to California for a while).
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:51 AM on January 28, 2010 [6 favorites]

I've made sourdough banana bread. It tastes like regular sweet banana bread, with a little more flavor complexity. The texture was excellent.
posted by chowflap at 6:53 AM on January 28, 2010

Seconding sourdough banana bread, especially if you then make french toast with it.
posted by qldaddy at 6:56 AM on January 28, 2010

Pretzels!
posted by torquemaniac at 8:59 AM on January 28, 2010

pizza dough
posted by kenbennedy at 9:04 AM on January 28, 2010

My mom used to make sourdough biscuits, pancakes and cinnamon rolls. Never bread, funnily enough.
posted by wallaby at 9:10 AM on January 28, 2010

Borrow Breads from La Brea Bakery from your library. It has some good suggestions, including a chocolate lava sourdough cake, oddly enough (haven't tried that).

Sorry for the derail, but how do all of you feed your starter? I've been feeding it 1:1 flour to water, but I notice some recipes say to feed it thicker, and I've noticed dough tends to be a bit wet and thin in my recipes. King Arthur said 2:1, which is quite a bit different from what I've been doing.
posted by mccarty.tim at 9:12 AM on January 28, 2010

PS: I meant by volume.
posted by mccarty.tim at 9:13 AM on January 28, 2010

Recipes for all sorts of things: Alaska Sourdough.
posted by leahwrenn at 9:14 AM on January 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

Nthing sourdough pancakes.
For pancakes for two people I use:
160g (1/2 cup) ripe starter, 100% hydration
3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour (or all purpose white flour, if you prefer.)
2 T sugar
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1 egg
3/4 c milk
2 T veg. oil (or melted butter)

C & Z also posted a recipe a while back for sourdough english muffins which I can personally confirm are very tasty.
posted by clockwork at 9:28 AM on January 28, 2010

By the way, you don't really have to feed the starter so often. A day after I feed it, I just put my starter in the fridge until the next time I need it.
posted by parudox at 9:39 AM on January 28, 2010

Crumpets? Chocolate lava cake? You guys rock.
Chocolate and Zucchini looks great, and I will be checking out the La Brea book.
Thanks for all the great answers so far!

I've been feeding it according to the King Arthur directions. My breads are pretty hydrated, but I like the crumb better that way, anyway.
posted by Adridne at 9:46 AM on January 28, 2010

bagels!
posted by pintapicasso at 11:25 AM on January 28, 2010

You haven't eaten until you make the waffles from the Alaska Sourdough cookbook. I make my batter rather thin and they are essentially all crispy shell. Slap some nutella on that, maybe wrap it around a banana and you aren't leaving the kitchen until you run through the entire batch... fuck plates.
posted by Foam Pants at 12:20 PM on January 28, 2010

Incidentally, the waffle recipe from the Alaska Sourdough cookbook can be found here. There's a slew of other stuff there, too.
posted by clockwork at 11:02 AM on January 31, 2010