Gold seekers headed for the Yukon carried flour and a sourdough pot, and lived on what it made, pancakes included. Discard does the same work now: pancakes, crackers, crumpets and more. Pancakes are the easiest start. Mix the discard with buttermilk and flour tonight, and breakfast takes 20 minutes.
The Klondike detail comes from Ruth Allman's 1976 book Alaska Sourdough, quoted in an Atlas Obscura history of why longtime Alaskans are still called "sourdoughs". Canadian police at the Chilkoot Pass turned back anyone without a year's provisions, and a sack of flour with a live starter went further than canned food many times its weight. The habit lasted: the Talkeetna Roadhouse, in the same article, serves sourdough hotcakes from a starter its previous owner said dated to 1902, an age the article notes is hard to verify. At the Klondike Gold Rush park in Seattle, the National Park Service calls sourdough the food most associated with the stampeders, and a park intern tried a period recipe for sourdough flapjacks.
What sourdough discard is
Discard is the starter you take out when you feed it, so the jar doesn't keep growing. It's the portion you'd otherwise throw away or compost during feeding, as King Arthur's discard collection puts it.
The discard isn't the leavening here. Overnight it sours the sponge, and in the morning baking soda reacts with that acid to lift the pancakes.
If the starter on your counter came from us (Orange Blossom Sourdough Starter), its discard goes into this recipe exactly as any other would. Made with organic wheat flour and wild yeast, it traces back to a Whittier family's 1930s starter. Revival and feeding instructions come by QR code on the package; this article picks up at the point where you have discard to spare.
Marmalade instead of maple syrup
Marmalade is thicker than syrup and brings peel and some bitterness with its sugar, so it goes on in one of two forms: beaten into butter, or loosened with water until it pours. Marmalade on pancakes isn't a new idea. Food Network Kitchen's orange marmalade pancakes beat a spoonful into softened butter and serve it on top, with maple syrup left as optional. Their ratio is 1 tablespoon of marmalade to 8 tablespoons of butter; the recipe below halves both and keeps the proportion.
The pourable version is the same syrup we use in our marmalade cocktails: marmalade warmed with its own volume of water. For cocktails the peel gets strained out. On pancakes, leave it in.
Overnight sourdough discard pancakes
The recipe follows King Arthur Baking's Classic Sourdough Pancakes, halved, with a marmalade topping in place of syrup.
Makes about 12 medium pancakes. Allow 15 minutes to mix, an overnight rest of about 12 hours, and 20 minutes at the griddle: roughly 12 hours 35 minutes overall.
Ingredients
Overnight sponge - ½ cup (113 g) sourdough discard, unfed - 1 cup (227 g) buttermilk - 1 cup (120 g) all-purpose flour - 1 tablespoon (14 g) granulated sugar
Batter - 1 large egg - 2 tablespoons (28 g) unsalted butter, melted, or 2 tablespoons (25 g) vegetable oil - ½ teaspoon baking soda - a scant ½ teaspoon table salt - butter or oil for the griddle
Marmalade butter - 4 tablespoons (57 g) unsalted butter, softened - 1½ teaspoons Navel Orange Marmalade, or any orange marmalade
Or warm marmalade - ¼ cup (60 ml) marmalade - ¼ cup (60 ml) water
Method
- The night before, stir the discard, buttermilk, flour and sugar together in a large bowl.
- Cover the bowl and leave it at cool room temperature, about 65–70°F (18–21°C), for about 12 hours.
- In the morning, beat the softened butter with the marmalade until smooth, and set it aside at room temperature.
- Heat a griddle or large skillet over medium heat.
- Beat the egg with the melted butter or oil in a small bowl.
- Stir the egg mixture into the sponge just until combined.
- Add the baking soda and salt and stir them in. The batter will swell and may bubble.
- Grease the griddle lightly.
- Pour the batter onto it by the ¼ cup (60 ml).
- Cook until bubbles form and pop on the surface, then flip.
- Cook until the underside is browned.
- Hold finished pancakes in a 200°F (95°C) oven while you cook the rest.
- For warm marmalade instead of the butter, heat the marmalade and water in a small pan, stirring, until loose and pourable.
- Serve the pancakes with the marmalade butter on top, or with the warm marmalade spooned over.
Notes
- Storage: leftover pancakes keep in the refrigerator for a day or two and freeze for longer, per the source recipe.
- Gluten-free: the original offers a version made with King Arthur's Gluten-Free Measure for Measure Flour.
- Which marmalade: Valencia is the sweetest we make, the one most children will like. Our Mandarin Marmalade is the most aromatic of the range. Grapefruit marmalades bring real bitterness, so save them for adults who like it.
What else can you make with sourdough discard?
The discard collection at King Arthur goes well beyond pancakes. On the sweet side it has chocolate chip cookies, banana bread, brownies, blueberry muffins and a cinnamon crumb cake. On the savory side, crackers, biscuits, English muffins, crumpets, popovers, a pizza crust and quick scallion pancakes. Our starter's own label suggests focaccia and pizza dough as well.
For the longer story of how Californians baked before commercial yeast, see sourdough before commercial yeast.
Pancakes are still where we'd begin, since a single batch uses a full half cup of discard and asks for nothing unusual from the pantry. Any discard works in the recipe, ours or not, and so does any orange marmalade.
Photo by Sultan Abdulrazzaq on Unsplash.
