Sourdough Pancakes

Making Pancakes on the Road

I guess there are a lot of choices about camping gear, including cookware, but to me it has always seemed the gear I came up with was lacking. I’ve tried aluminum and stainless steel, thin gage ironware, and even porcelain cookware that reminded me of the blue enamelware plates my parents used on camping trips we took together when I was a kid.  The thing is, none of them seem suited to not burning food or ruining it because it all stuck to the bottom of the pan. Everything I’ve run across seems designed for lightness, which is necessary, especially for backpacking. The best pans I’ve used are cast iron. I’d hate to try carrying one of those backpacking. I’ve tried over and over to use those little Boy Scout type cook sets with a frying pan, deep dish, lidded pot, and coffee cup. Of course, the aluminum cup burns your mouth when you take a sip of any hot liquid, but the lidded pot works well. The handle on the frying pan needs to be long if you’re cooking over a campfire, but is way too heavy if you are cooking on a tiny backpacking stove, which I always carry on motorcycle trips, and the pan falls off the stove.

So, enough complaining. The reason for the above discussion is because I wanted to set myself up for a little sympathy, or shared misery, when I say I’ve burned more pancakes on camping trips than I’d like to admit. And, that’s the topic for this week’s blog post—sourdough pancakes. I learned to make pancakes early in life, cooking them on a wood stove. I learned to flip them as a kid too, whenever I wasn’t using a griddle big enough to cook half a dozen at a time (I had a big appetite). I took pride in being able to make good pancakes, so I found the burning, sticking, deforming frying pan experiences of camping cookware frustrating to say the least. But I am stubborn, and insisted on using sourdough on backpacking trips as well as motorcycle runs. Even the imperfect results I often produced were well worth the effort once on the tongue. I also figured out that I needed to hold the pan, not set it on the burner and turn to something else while my pancake cooked. That way, I could control the heat better and actually do a decent job of cooking the pancakes, not scorching them. Fortunately, I also dropped my eating quota down from eight or twelve pancakes to two or three.

Making sourdough pancakes still seems to me more technique than recipe. I like to keep my starter quite thick, and that effects the necessary technique. I plop about a half cup into a bowl holding an egg I’ve already beaten, and mix the two together. I then toss a couple of rounded tablespoons of flour and a heaping tablespoon of powdered milk on top of the mixture and sprinkle a pinch of baking soda (1/4 teaspoon) and a pinch of salt over that. I stir the ingredients together, adding as much water as needed to produce a nice pancake batter consistency. I love to add blueberries, if I have them, or banana if I happen to have one of those handy, although that’s not likely on a back packing or road trip. I fry the batter in clarified butter, which keeps pretty well when refrigeration is lacking. I often use honey as a sweetener instead of syrup because it can be used in other cooking as well. In spite of the difficulties and challenges, my mouth is watering at the memories. What are your tales of making pancakes over campfires or camp stoves? If sourdough is your thing, but camping is not, I hope you share your recipes and techniques as well. There are a lot of ways to “get-er-done”, and I hope to learn some new ones from you. P/S Thanks for visiting my blog.