Since I was young, I’ve always loved pancakes. We didn’t have them that often growing up, but when we did, they were always on the weekend, and they were such a fun treat. Most of the time, we had the crappy fake syrup, but in high school, my dad started buying real maple syrup (from Costco, because where else are you going to get a “good deal” on that liquid gold, which is priced as such since it’s so extremely laborious to make?!), and that was a true dream in the mouth.

As an adult, I’ve experimented with all kinds of different pancake recipes, whether it’s with separating the egg whites from the yolks and whipping the whites to stiff peaks, buttermilk vs. milk, vegan “milks” vs. cow milk, brown rice flour/whole wheat flour/all purpose flour/cake flour combinations, corn meal for extra texture, banana or pumpkin bases — you name it, and I’ve probably tried it out. This morning, I used my dormant sourdough starter to make sourdough whole wheat buttermilk pancakes, and the amount of tang from the buttermilk plus the sourdough starter was truly delicious. When using whole grains like brown rice or whole wheat, I usually do a ratio of 50/50 all-purpose to the whole grain, but this time, I thought, what the heck — we need to be eating more whole grains than processed grains, and I figured that the buttermilk and all-purpose flour-based starter would mellow it out. And they really did.

But I had one pancake failure, though. I used Smitten Kitchen’s fluffy buttermilk pancake recipe and replaced all the all-purpose flour with brown rice flour after the brown rice flour did well with the 50/50 ratio the week before. The texture and taste…. left something to be desired. It was gritty, almost bitter, and I couldn’t figure out why. It was essentially a whole grain rice pancake. Maybe the brown rice didn’t interact well with the buttermilk. It was the very first time I made something when Chris took one bite, grimaced, and immediately said, “this is disgusting.”

#testandlearn