Canada - Sourdough Hotcakes

Background
When I started looking up information on Canadian food, I basically thought it would be English cuisine, with French influence in Quebec. I got The Canadian Cookbook from the library. As I was reading through the recipes I started to realize that this basic assumption was true but that the cuisine has also been influenced by everyone who showed up in the country (a lot like the United States in that regard). The book also had an excellent section on breakfast foods giving a wde number of choices.
Our choices ranged from yam latkes, french toast, bannock, crepes, and sourdough hotcakes. The only dish from this I had not previously heard of were bannocks. Bannock is a quick bread brought over from Scotland and was a staple of early settles and fur traders. However, we decided to make the sourdough hotcakes. First because I never made sourdough before and I have heard people rave about how wonderful it tastes. The second reason is that I have not had pancakes in while and I really miss it.
The book gives two methods of making the starter. We chose the overnight version instead of the weeklong version, mostly because we were cooking dinner for 10 people over New Year's and had no spare mixing bowls. We will list both methods.

Sourdough Hotcakes

• 2 cups sourdough starter (recipes follow)
• 1½ cups unbleached or wholewheat flour
• 2 tbsp sugar, maple syrup, or honey
• 3 tbsp oil
• 2 eggs
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda, dissolved in 1 tbsp of warm water

1. Preheat and grease the griddle.
2. Mix all the ingredients together except the baking soda.
3. Gently fold in the baking soda and start cooking immediately as to not lose the leavening effect.
4. Place a spoonful of batter on a hot griddle and shake it to get a circle like shape.
5. Cook, turning once, until golden brown on each side and done in the middle.

Fast Sourdough Starter

• 1 cup warm water (100–110°F)
• 1 cup unbleached flour
• ½ tsp active dry yeast

1. Mix all of the ingredients in a bowl.
2. Leave it out on the countertop overnight in a draft-free area. The optimal temperature is somewhere between 65–77°F.
3. If you want to let the starter develop a stronger taste or keep it for future use you can let it strengthen over several days. Give the starter ¼ cup flour and ½ cup water every other day.

Old-fashoned Sourdough Starter

• 2 large potatoes (unpeeled)
• 3 tbsp sugar
• 1 2/3 cups flour
• ½ tsp active dry yeast

1. Boil the potatoes until they fall apart.
2. Remove the potato skins and mash them in a non-metallic bowl.
3. Add water as needed to make a thick liquid.
4. Add the remaining ingredients and beat the mixture smooth.
5. Let starter stand for a week before use and feed as described above. 

Results and Discussion
Making the starter is very easy and it starts making bubbles and expanding after about 30 minutes. The sour taste was not as well developed as I had hoped and I would make the starter several days in advance next time. The batter was very thick and this makes pouring them very difficult. I checked the recipe several times to see if more liquid was needed but it was right. Shaking the pan has I poured helped a little and the results were mostly round. You are going to want to cook these on each side longer than normal pancakes because they are really thick. A stack of six was almost 6 inches tall. This thickness resulted in an under done center in a few of the pancakes.
In the end they were a beefed-up version of normal pancakes only much thicker and with a slight sourness. When paired with the maple syrup you get a nice sweet-and-sour pairing. Giving the starter a couple more days would have made this better.
It felt very good to make pancakes again. Pancakes have been a staple of my Saturday and Sunday breakfasts since I can remember. It is probably the first thing I cooked on my own. When I was little I always used Bisquick mixed in an olive green bowl with a white interior. I would mix it with the electric beater and cook it on a griddle that let me cook four at a time. When I got low on batter and I would pour all the batter into one huge pancake to see if could flip it. Results tended to be mixed. I probably left the dishes for one of my parents to clean.