This chain of events had its origins last year in a postage stamp size café/restaurant on the northeast side of Seattle’s Capital Hill neighborhood. It served some really good baked goods for breakfast and good soup and decent sandwiches for lunch. The main reason I kept going back though, was the yeast-leavened waffles they offered for brunch on Saturdays and Sundays, despite the long lines.
I can only assume that at sometime in my life I had eaten yeast-leavened waffles, as opposed to waffles leavened with baking powder or a combination of baking powder and baking soda, but I couldn’t ‘for the life of me’ remember when. The batter for yeast-leavened waffles must be made the night before to allow the yeast to develop - after all, waffles are in the bread/cake family. As with bread and pizza dough this not only develops the ‘rise’ and structure but it also develops a more complex flavor with a definite ‘tangy’ finish. Served with a fruit compote and real maple syrup, their waffles were heavenly. After an absence of several months last year, including a snow-bound December, I arrived at opening time the on first Sunday in January, only to find that because of electrical problems they no longer offered waffles!!!
There was no way that I was going to buy a waffle-maker, since my waistline wouldn’t be able to cope with a literal addiction to waffles, but within the week I began contemplating possibly the next best thing, yeast-leavened pancakes - like waffles, pancakes are usually chemically leavened. I had always had a love-hate relationship with pancakes ever since I was a child trying eat my way through a stack of my mother’s thick, eight-inch diameter ‘flapjacks.’ They always seemed either too dry or too mushy, and almost always sat in my stomach like rocks for hours on end. My interest in them revived for a while back in the nineties when pancakes were upgraded, and lightened a bit, with ricotta cheese and other fancy ingredients, but over the last decade I probably didn’t have them more than four or five times. If a bit of yeast could change my opinion of waffles, why not pancakes?
There didn’t seem to be a lot of recipes for yeast-leavened pancakes online, but I eventually found a starting point which I heavily modified. I used a combination of buttermilk, whole milk, eggs, and ricotta cheese for my liquid ingredients; walnut oil for my fat; all purpose flour and semolina for my dry ingredients, and vanilla and Meyer lemon rind for flavoring. The pancakes were great, with a nice light texture and a rich, tangy flavor. I enjoyed the pancakes for several days with the flavor getting more substantial as the yeast developed further. Unfortunately, I wasn’t sure how much to ‘feed’ the batter to keep the yeast going and to keep the proper ratio of dry to liquid ingredients, and I neglected to type out the final recipe. Over the weekend, I made a batch of batter, but this time I used a combination of fine and coarse polenta instead of the semolina and orange rind instead of the Meyer lemon, and they also turned out well with the corn adding new dimensions in texture and flavor. So pancakes are back on the menu.
Yeast-Leavened Buttermilk and Polenta Pancakes
Makes about 18 (3-1/2-inch) pancakes
- 1 cup whole milk
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 3 large eggs
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1 cup polenta, preferably half course and half fine
- 1-1/4 teaspoon active dry yeast
- 1 tablespoon superfine sugar
- 2 ounce walnut oil
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon grated orange rind
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- Warm the milk to about 90 degrees and add the sugar and yeast. Then add the walnut oil to the milk.
- Lightly beat the eggs in a mixing bowl and add the milk mixture, the vanilla and orange rind and then the flour. Whisk until combined then add the sea salt.
- Allow the batter to cool and then cover and put in refrigerator overnight to let yeast develop.
- Pourthe batter into a heated and oiled pan - I prefer a 3-inch to 4-inch size.
- Top with fruit compote, real maple syrup, or both.
Comments