This waffle recipe produces extraordinarily light and crispy waffles. They're fairly neutral in flavour -- despite the huge quantity of vanilla -- and have only a very subtle sour tang to them. I think I like the "Belgian" waffle recipe that I recently tried slightly better, but these are also very good. And they have the added benefits of using up a large quantity of discard and not requiring an overnight fermentation, so they can be whipped up on short notice, which I do appreciate. So, overall, I am pretty happy with this recipe. It might not be my favourite, but it's very good and very quick. Definitely something to keep in mind whenever I have sour cream on hand.

Sour Cream Sourdough Waffles

Slightly adapted from Cultures for Health

Ingredients

• 450g sourdough discard @ 100% hydration
• 2 large eggs
• 1 Tbsp. vanilla extract
• 2/3 c. sour cream
• 2 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted
• 1 Tbsp. honey
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda

Directions

1. Preheat your waffle iron.
2. Beat eggs into discard.
3. Mix in vanilla, sour cream, butter, and honey.
4. Sift in baking powder and baking soda and mix very well.
5. Pour a portion of batter into the waffle maker and cook according to manufacturer instructions.
6. Top with yogurt, jam, syrup, whipped cream, fresh fruit, and/or icing sugar as desired.

I had been intending to make bread yesterday, but by the time to starter was nice and active, it was late and I was out of energy to do anything with it. So I mixed up the sponge for this waffle batter instead and cooked up a few waffles this morning.

I like this recipe. It made pleasingly fluffy waffles with nice crisp outsides. It was easy to make. And it wasn't overly sour. Pretty much ideal.

Photo goes here.

Sourdough Belgian Waffles

Slightly adapted from Cultures for Health

Ingredients

• 250g ripe (active/fed) sourdough starter @ 100% hydration
• 1 c. water
• 1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
• 1/4 c. unsalted butter, melted
• 2 Tbsp. honey
• 1/2 tsp. coarse sea salt
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda

Directions

1. Combine the starter, water, and flour. Mix well, cover, and ferment overnight at room temperature.
2. In the morning, preheat your waffle iron.
3. Combine the butter, honey, salt, and vanilla.
4. Beat the eggs into the butter mixture.
5. Sift in the baking soda.
6. Pour the egg mixture into the starter/sponge mixture and whisk until combined.
7. Pour a portion of batter into your preheated waffle iron and cook according to the directions for your particular appliance. Adjust the temperature and cooking time as necessary to achieve a crisp, well-browned outer crust.
8. Serve with fresh berries, jam, maple syrup, whipped cream, and/or icing sugar.

I don't make soad breads very often. I tend to like either relatively sweet, batter-based quick breads or long-fermented yeasted breads better. But we've been out of bread for quite a while now and I keep not having the spoons to make more, so I figured I'd try out this sourdough soda bread as a stop-gap until I feel up to making more "real" bread. I haven't had a chance to try it yet, but it looks nice and I want to get the write up out of the way before it becomes another thing piled onto my backlog.

Sourdough Soda Bread

From Cultures for Health

Ingredients

• 3 1/2 c. whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp. coarse sea salt
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 c. unsalted butter, chilled
• 350g sourdough starter (fresh or discard) @ 100% hydration
• 1 c. buttermilk¹
• 1/4 c. honey
• 1 egg²

Directions

1. Combine the flour, salt, and baking soda in a large bowl.
2. Cut in the butter.
3. Combine the starter, buttermilk, and honey in a large measuring cup.
4. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in the wet.
5. Gradually incorporate the dry ingredients into the wet, working from the centre out ward.
6. Once most of the flour has been incorporated, turn the dough out onto your work surface and knead it for ~20 minutes. Lightly flour the work surface as needed, but don't overdo it! It's generally better for the dough to be a little too wet than too dry.
7. Preheat the oven to 180°F (350°C).
8. Divide the dough into two equal portions.
9. Knead each portion a few strokes and shape into a round ball.
10. Grease a large baking sheet and dust it with cornmeal.
11. Place the dough balls, seam side down, on the baking sheet.
12. Cut a deep cross in the top of each one. Don't be afraid to go most of the way through the loaf. Some people even do cut all the way through and then just leave the four pieces lightly pressed against each other on the baking sheet.
13. Prepare your egg wash as you prefer and brush both loaves with egg.
14. Bake at 180°C (350°F) for 30-45 minutes.
15. When done, transfer to wire rack to cool.

---

¹ As usual, I didn't have any buttermilk on hand. Normally I would have just used some milk soured with a bit of vinegar, but I went with 1/2 c. of sour cream thinned with 1/2 c. of milk for this one. Mostly because I still had a bunch of sour cream that needed to be used up. I think this makes a better buttermilk substitute anyway since sour cream uses the same culture as buttermilk. ^Back
2 I like to mix my egg with a little water (maybe a Tbsp. or so) for my egg wash, but make your wash however you prefer for this. You won't need the whole egg, so save the rest for another use or cook it up as scrambled eggs. ^Back

I've had this recipe open in a tab in my browser for... probably a couple months now. It sounded delicious, but I kept just not quite having the right confluence of spoons, ingredients, and time to make it. Well, I finally got to it. And it's pretty amazing!

It's not a super light and airy loaf. It's got too many inclusions for that. I actually found that I had to add a little bit more flour than the recipe called for just to get the dough to come together properly. I think next time I'd actually put a little less tomato in as it made the dough very wet and kind of overpowered everything else. (And it occurs to me now that I totally should've weighed the tomato to make it easier to quantify next time! Oh well...) It's still delicious though. The basil and the garlic just kind of take a back seat to the tomato. Definitely glad I gave it a try.

Tomato-Basil Sourdough

Slightly adapted from Cultures for Health

Ingredients

• 250g ripe (active/fed) sourdough starter @ 100% hydration
• 6-8 cocktail tomatoes, chopped
• 28-30g fresh basil, chopped
• 6 cloves garlic, sliced
• 300g hard (strong/high grade/bread) whole wheat flour
• 250g hard (strong/high grade/bread) white flour
• 1 Tbsp. coarse sea salt
• 100g sun-dried tomatoes, julienned
• water, as needed

Directions

1. Combine the starter, tomatoes, basil, garlic, and whole wheat flour and mix well. Cover and set aside for ~30 minutes.
2. Work in just enough of the white flour to form a soft dough.
3. Turn the dough out onto a work surface and knead in the salt and sun-dried tomatoes. Flour the work surface as needed with any of the remaining white flour.
4. If your tomatoes were not very juicy and the dough seems too stiff, you may need to work in a bit of extra water during kneading rather than using flour on the work suface.
5. Shape the dough into a ball and place in a covered bowl. Ferment at room temperature for 2-4 hours (may need longer if the room is cool). Stretch and fold the dough every hour or so during fermentation.
6. Once the dough has completed its bulk ferment, divide it into two equal portions and round each one. Cover and let rest for ~30 minutes.
7. Shape each round into a loaf and place in a floured banneton. Cover and proof until puffy and well-risen¹. Alternatively, cover and place in the fridge overnight. Take out about an hour before you'd like to bake the loaves.
8. Preheat oven to 230°C (450°F) and boil some water.
9. Grease a baking sheet and dust it with cornmeal.
10. Turn the loaves out onto the prepared baking sheet and slash as desired.
11. Put a pan of boiling water on the bottom oven rack and put the bread on a rack set above.
12. Bake at 230°C (450°F) until the crust is nicely browned (~15 minutes).
13. Remove the pan of water and reduce the oven temperature to 180°C (350°F) and bake for another 20-30 minutes.
14. Once loaves are done, turn the oven off and let them rest in the hot oven for 5-10 minutes.
15. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

---

¹ I didn't time how long my loaves took to proof. Probably ~2 hours, but I'm not entirely sure. It'll vary depending on your starter, your tomatoes, room temperature, etc. anyway. Let the dough tell you when it's done rather than relying on a specific timing. ^Back

I've made sourdough chocolate cakes before, but I always like trying out new recipes, so I figured I'd give this one from Cultures for Health a go.

It's... alright. The Kidlet loves it. And I do find it acceptably tasty. It's just not amazing. To be fair, I did fiddle with the recipe a little bit. So maybe my results are not an accurate reflection of the original recipe. That's fine. I was trying to cut the sugar and fat a little to aim for something a bit healthier.

Honestly, it wasn't that the cake tasted too lean or insufficiently sweet or anything. That was all fine. My main complaint was a lack of depth to the chocolate flavour. (And the batter was a little stiff, although the resulting cake was moist enough, so I don't think that's a huge problem.)

For this iteration, I tried replacing half the butter with a mashed banana and replaced the sugar with a mix of Splenda brown sugar blend and monk fruit sweetener. I think next time I might try adding even more banana and experiment with replacing the butter with cacao paste. The cacao paste is pretty high fat, so it should still give some richness while also boosting the chocolate flavour. As usual, I've written up the recipe to reflect these (as yet untested) changes.

Sourdough Chocolate Snack Cake

Adapted from Cultures for Health

Ingredients

• 1/4 c. cacao paste wafers
• 1/8 tsp. instant coffee crystals
• 2 Tbsp. boiling water
• 2 very ripe bananas, mashed
• 1/4 c. Splenda brown sugar blend (or 1/2 c. brown sugar)
• 1/4 c. 1:1 monk fruit sweetener
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 125g ripe (active/fed) sourdough starter @ 100% hydration
• 1 c. all-purpose flour¹
• 1/4 c. natural (non-alkalized) cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. coarse sea salt, ground
• 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/2 c. walnuts, chopped

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F) and grease and flour a 20cm (8") square tin.
2. Combine the cacao paste with the instant coffee and pour the boiling water over them. Cover and set aside.
3. Combine the bananas, Splenda, and monk fruit sweetener and beat until well-mixed.
4. Check to see if the cacao paste has melted. If not stir it and give it a quick zap in the microwave. (Be careful! Don't burn it.)
5. Add the cacao poaste mixture to the banana mixture and beat to combine.
6. Beat in the egg and the vanilla.
7. Beat in the sourdough starter.
8. Sift the flour, cocoa powder, and baking soda on top without mixing.
9. Add the salt and cinnamon on top of the other dry ingredients.
10. Beat until just combined.
11. Fold in the walnuts.
12. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top.
13. Bake at 180°C (350°F) for ~30 minutes.
14. Let cool in tin for ~10 minutes, then turn out onto wire rack to finish cooling.
15. Serve plain, iced, or dusted with icing sugar.

---

¹ I may switch this out for soft whole wheat flour at some point, but I didn't want to make too many changes at once. ^Back

Okay, so this recipe needs some work. I had my doubts about it, but I figured I should make it as written the first time. Well, okay, mostly as written. I did make a few swaps just to try to make it a little healthier. But they're tried-and-true swaps that I've made in similar recipes in the past with no ill effect, so I'm confident that that's not why this recipe didn't really work. And, having tried it once, I do have a few ideas for how to improve it. I just haven't had a chance to test them yet. So, take the instructions below with a grain of salt.

Sourdough Bran Muffins

Adapted from Cultures for Health

Ingredients

• 500g ripe (fed/active) sourdough starter @ 100% hydration
• 1/4 c. water
• 60g all-purpose flour
• 150g oat or wheat bran
• 4 dates, pitted and chopped
• 2 Tbsp. boiling water
• 1/4 c. honey
• 2 large eggs
• 1 banana, mashed
• 1/4 c. unsweetened applesauce
• 1/4 c. oil
• 1/2 tsp. coarse sea salt, ground
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp. mixed spice
• 2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 c. raisins

Directions

1. Combine starter and water.
2. Mix in flour and bran.
3. Cover and let ferment at room temperature for 8-12 hours.
4. Pour the boiling water over the dates. If your honey is very stiff or has crystalized, add it as well; the hot water will soften/dissolve it. Set aside for 10-20 minutes.
5. Preheat oven to 200°C (400°F) and grease a muffin pan.
6. Combine date mixture, honey, eggs, banana, applesauce, oil, salt, cinnamon, and mixed spice in a large measuring cup and mix well.
7. Break up preferment into small pieces and sprinkle with baking soda.
8. Add ~1/2 of the wet ingredients and mix well.
9. Add the raisins and the rest of the wet ingredients and mix until fully combined.
10. Spoon batter into prepared pan(s). This recipe should make ~18 full-sized (5cm/2" diameter) muffins ore 36 mini muffins.
11. Bake at 200°C (400°F) for 15-18 minutes. (Mini muffins will probably only need 10 minutes.)
12. Cool in pan(s) for 10-15 minutes, then turn out onto wire rack to finish cooling.
13. Serve with butter and/or jam.

The sourdough starter was threatening to climb right out of its jar after I fed it today. I'd already mixed up an overnight waffle sponge from the discard and it was getting pretty late in the day. I needed something that would use up starter and could be whipped up quickly. Something that wasn't bread or cookies or pancakes. This fritter recipe was exactly what the occasion called for.

TF and the Kidlet loved these fritters. I did too, but I think I would've liked them even more if they'd been a little less greasy. They soaked up a lot of oil during cooking. They also stuck like the Dickens! I'm not sure why they stuck so badly. There was lots of oil in the pan and it seemed to be a good temperature, but they were an absolute nightmare to try to pry off the pan and flip. On the bright side, the batter is incredibly easy to mix up. You can have these fritters mixed up and ready to go in the pan in five minutes!

I'm still going to explore other uses for sourdough starter, but this is a good one to keep in my back pocket.

Sourdough Onion Fritters

Slightly adapted from Cultures for Health

Ingredients

• 3/4 c. sourdough starter (100% hydration or more)
• 1/2 Tbsp. cornmeal
• 1/2 Tbsp. sugar
• 1/2 tsp. coarse sea salt, ground
• 1/4 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1 onion, chopped
• fat for frying

Directions

1. Whisk cornmeal, sugar, and salt into starter. Add a little more water if the batter seems too thick.
2. Sprinkle baking powder and baking soda over the batter and whisk it in.
3. Stir in onion.
4. Heat oil (which should be 1-2cm deep) over medium heat.
5. Drop spoonfuls of onion-studded batter into the hot oil.
6. Once the bottoms have browned, flip them over and cook the other side. (Flipping may take some doing. They tend to stick.)
7. Remove from oil and set on a paper towel-lined plate to drain.