This pancake recipe is an adaptation of Nancy Silverton’s from La Brea Bakery in Los Angeles, and it’s a great addition to your menu if you have a good sourdough starter you feed regularly.

For years, I gained praise by using my mom’s famous recipe. I’d make pancakes for poor souls who’d never had one that hadn’t started its life in a box mix. I experimented with adding ingredients like sour cream and maple syrup straight into the batter until I’d found, what I considered, the perfect pancake.

But this one’s better. (Sorry, Mom!)

These pancakes have a lacey crispness on the outside paired with a perfect tenderness on the inside—pancakes with a brief passing nod at crêpes.

However, what makes these beauties beyond fabulous is that they’re ideal for those wanting to eat food that’s lower on the glycemic index, making them a better option for diabetics and anyone else wanting to avoid that sugar spike. 

How? This recipe doesn’t call for flour. That’s right, we’re talking straight starter that’s been sitting around fermenting—all those lactobacilli breaking down starches and eating up as many sugars and as they can—mixed with eggs and a few other basic ingredients, but no additional flour. Use stevia instead of sugar and sugar-free syrup, and you’re good to go.

The Best Sourdough Pancake Recipe

Ingredients

Instructions
  • One pound 2 oz. starter—when I weigh it using a 2-cup measurer, the starter fills to just under the lip of the cup—so past the 2-cup mark
  • Sweetener of your choice—I use Stevia
  • 3 tablespoons melted butter
  • 2 large eggs
  • A dash salt
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  1. Stir butter, starter, and eggs together.
  2. Combine dry ingredients and mix well into the batter.
    Make sure to use a bowl twice as large as the contents because the mixture tends to swell. 
  3. Add a pat of butter (Or two. Or three.)to the frying pan, and when bubbling, pour about a half cup of batter into the pan.
  4. When the pancake has bubbles all over, flip it over, and cook a minute or so longer, removing when the underside is brown but not overly dark.
  5. Add another pat of butter to the frying pan for the next pancake.

So enjoy! We’ll keep posting recipes for you to try, writing informative articles for your health, and following the rise of the bread revolution. 

Thank you for letting us be a part of your journey.

Author: Michelle Hubbard is a graduate of Brigham Young University with an English degree and an editing minor. She won Leading Edge’s “Best First Chapter” award and later joined the publication as a slush reader and editor. After attending the Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers conference in Sandy, Utah, she became a volunteer and this June will be her ninth year as an assistant. She is also a writing officer for Misha Collin’s charity Random Acts. A draft of her middle-grade novel, Oscar and the Ghosts of Paris, placed second with the Utah Arts Council. She lives in Pleasant Grove with her husband, sister, two children, and far too many pets