Gluten Free Sourdough Pancakes

This experiment started out with me trying to make sourdough bread. I have a lot of prejudices against gluten free breadmaking, and getting ok loaves are only leaving me frustrated. I decided instead to make pancakes with my sourdough starter. It works great! and no xantham gum or exorbitant amounts of starch needed. It's the simplest thing in the world, and works great for sandwich bread.

To start a sourdough starter is a simple process. All it takes is flour, water, and time. Sorghum flour, in this case. You can use other types of flours, but my experience is pretty much just sorghum, because that's what I had on hand. It works well.

In a glass bowl, mix a bunch of flour (maybe about a cup) and enough water for it to look like thick pancake batter. Loosely cover it, and set it aside (in a cupboard, on top of the fridge, whatever). Feed your starter twice a day, when you get up in the morning, and just before bed at night. To feed it, just add more flour and water. Amounts aren't exact, and it is very forgiving. My starter only took about a day and a half to get bubbly and rise about double in size. Yours may take a day or two more. If you get a liquid on top, just pour it off or stir it in. That's just a sign you have too much water or aren't feeding it as often as it likes. After several days, you'll get to understand your starter's hydration preferences.

When you have more than two cups of starter (after you've stirred it down and before you feed it), go ahead and take out one cup for this recipe. Don't forget to feed your starter before you put it away!

To make the pancakes:

mix the dry ingredients together:
1 cup any gluten free whole grain (or psuedo-grain) flour, my favorite at the moment is oat flour, but rice & millet work fine, too, or a combination of flours (ie:1/2 buckwheat and 1/2 millet)
2 Tbs sweetener --I often use honey or dehydrated cane juice (honey would go in with the liquid ingredients, dehydrated cane juice with the dry)
1/2 tsp sea salt

now add the wet (I just put the wet on top of the dry and mix all at once):
1 egg (optional, it helps the texture, if you're not eating egg, you can leave it out, it just makes for a more delicate, airy pancake)
1 cup sourdough starter
1/2 cup water (the amount here may vary depending on the type of flour used, so if you're not sure, just put most of it in and adjust after it's stirred in)
 Sometimes I also put up to 1 Tbs oil in or bacon grease. Try it both ways and see what you like.

Ok, Stir it up. It should look a lot like any pancake batter you are used to.

Lastly, in a small bowl mix 1 tsp baking soda with a little water. Mix this into your pancake mixture, and stir, stir, stir. You'll want this mixture incorporated as quickly as possible, because you'll soon see the soda react with the acidity of the sourdough, and your batter will rise (this really impressed my children (it was fun for me too)). Now just cook your hotcakes as you normally would.

You can eat the pancakes with maple syrup, but they especially go well with fruity flavors.

Store cooled pancakes in a container (or baggie) in the refrigerator. I like to use the leftovers as sandwich bread (yes, cold!) with coldcuts. It holds together better than most of the gluten free breads I've tried, doesn't have all the extra starch I don't need in my diet, and tastes much better than baking powder pancakes.