Spelt Sourdough Pancakes (Vegan)

Like every single other white man in his 30s the pandemic has got me making sourdough. It’s about time really. I’ve had a couple of day classes on it in the past but always fell at the first hurdle when I got home; remembering to keep the starter alive. But here I am 3 loaves deep and with a pretty healthy starter stored away. I’m not here to talk you through bread baking though, I’m actually going to suggest something to do with leftover starter; spelt sourdough pancakes.

I couldn’t not show you the sourdough I’ve been baking though could I…

So many recipes for alternative uses for sourdough starter seem to involve hundreds of grams of the stuff. If you’re not keeping a huge starter then that can make it very awkward. A large number of sourdough pancake recipes also call for numerous other ingredients, making them both more expensive, complex and time consuming. The beauty of this recipe is that it’s simply 5 simple ingredients:

  1. Sourdough starter
  2. Spelt flour
  3. Milk
  4. Sugar
  5. Baking powder

This spelt sourdough pancake recipe makes a pretty huge stack of light & fluffy pancakes. We’ve actually frozen a few to have in the future when we’re not so time rich. We topped ours with yoghurt, homemade rhubarb curds, nuts and some syrup, but these pancakes would work pretty well with whatever you wanted to top them with, even something savoury.

What do you use your leftover sourdough starter for?

Spelt Vegan Sourdough Pancakes

Deliciously light and fluffy pancakes made from discarded sourdough starter.
Prep Time 5 minutes
Cook Time 10 minutes
Proving time 8 hours
Total Time 15 minutes
Servings 12 pancakes

Ingredients
  

  • 25 g Sourdough starter (I use my discarded starter that’s 100% hydration and ripe)
  • 150 g Spelt flour
  • 300 ml Oat milk (any vegan or dairy milk would work here)
  • 2 tbsp Golden caster sugar
  • 2 tsp Baking powder

Instructions
 

  • Combine the starter with the flour into a bit of a paste in a large mixing bowl.
  • Mix in the spelt flour, milk and golden caster sugar. Whisk until everything is properly incorporated.
  • Cover the mixing bowl with a damp tea towel and leave in a warm place for at least 4 hours. I usually leave mine overnight so I can make them for breakfast. See notes for additional suggestions. It should be slightly bubbly when it’s ready to use.
  • Heat a frying pan or skillet over a medium heat.
  • While the pan is heating up, mix the baking powder through the batter
  • Lightly oil the pan, making sure it coats the surface.
  • Add a small ladleful of batter to the hot pan, spreading it to about a 10cm circle.
  • This is quite a bubbly mixture, so the usual trick of watching for bubbles may not work, but keep an eye on the middle of the pancake and check the underside. Once it’s browned you should be able to flip it. In a hot pan I was getting around 1 minute per side.
  • Flip and cook the other side. Transfer to a pancake and keep warm while you make up the others.
  • Top with whatever you wish. Freeze any leftovers for another time.

Notes

  • I use a 100% hydration starter that’s completely ripe and bubbling.
  • I tend to bake this recipe by using starter discarded in the evening so that the batter can sit overnight and ferment. You could do it from the morning’s discard if you wanted to have them for lunch or dinner.
Keyword sourdough pancakes

Miso Brownies

Miso Brownie - The Bearded Bakery

We’re living through very strange times. With a pandemic sweeping the globe and entire countries on shut down, everyone’s spending significantly more time indoors. Based on my social feeds this means that people seem to be baking a whole lot more often. I’ve joined the masses in making my own sourdough starter, made vegan cookie dough that’s portioned off into batches and popped in the freezer, even tried making fresh pasta for the first time. All in all, I’ve been spending a significant time in the kitchen. It’s been a good way of escaping from staring at a screen while I’m tried indoors, but also being practical at the same time. It feels like a good time to get a few posts up too.

Miso Brownie - The Bearded Bakery

This is actually a recipe I baked long before all of this kicked off. It’s one I’ve had in the back of my mind, ready to be blogged if I ever got round to getting back writing. After buying the fantastic new Meera Sodha book ‘East’ at the tail end of 2019, I found a recipe for Miso Brownies. Now, hers are a little more involved than these, using flax seeds, but the concept sounded fantastic so it was something I wanted to try.

Miso Brownie - The Bearded Bakery

Using miso for something dense and fudge-y like a brownie is excellent. It adds to that fudge-like texture but also gives an additional caramel-like flavour to the brownie. Miso’s something you may have picked up as an additional long-life extra when you were at a supermarket, or for one individual recipe. This bake should help give you some ideas for other uses too, like miso mac and cheese, or miso caramel.

So what’s everyone been baking lately?

Miso Brownies

Michael
Fudgy brownies with a nutty caramel tang. Perfect for using up any miso you’ve got in the store cupboard.
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 23 minutes
Total Time 43 minutes
Course Dessert

Ingredients
  

  • 115 g Unsalted butter
  • 115 g Dark chocolate (70%)
  • 2 Eggs large
  • 1 Egg white from a large egg
  • 300 g White granulated sugar
  • 2 tbsp Miso the type doesn’t really matter
  • 1 tsp Vanilla extract
  • 110 g Plain flour

Instructions
 

  • Preheat your oven to 180°C(160°C fan assisted) and line a 9x9inch square tin with baking paper.
  • While the oven’s heating up, melt the chocolate and butter together. Do this by placing a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water. Don’t let the bottom of the bowl touch the water and stir until the butter and chocolate have melted together.
  • Leave this mixture somewhere cool a little while you do the rest.
  • In the bowl of an electric stand mixer, or using an electric whisk, beat together the eggs, egg white and sugar. This will take a while, so a stand mixer will be best. Whisk for 7-10 minutes. The mixture will have gone pale and yellow. If you pick some up on the whisk and dribble it across the top, it should take a couple of seconds for the line to disappear. This step is essential for getting the properly crispy meringue-like top.
  • Stir through the miso and the vanilla.
  • Carefully stir through the chocolate and butter mixture, making sure you don’t knock much air out.
  • Carefully stir through the flour, again making sure you don’t knock the air out.
  • Transfer the mixture to the prepared tin, and place in the middle shelf of your preheated oven.
  • Bake for 17-22 minutes. You want the top to have crisped up and for there to be just a little jiggle when you wobble the tray.
  • Place the tin on a cooling rack and allow to cool completely, and set, before serving.
Keyword Miso Brownies