Best with: White Sonora Wheat and Amber Eden®
Recipe and story by Rob, a home miller from Pullman, WA
Our family loves waffles and pancakes, and we also love pie, and in this recipe the two are linked. For some time I made a yeast-raised waffle and pancake batter with commercial white flour. Then I bought a Mockmill grain mill attachment for our KitchenAid. My wife was somewhat skeptical, but the first time I made a batch of batter with freshly ground whole hard white wheat, she told me, "You just paid for that mill!"
Pie crust had been a long struggle. With commercial white flour I tried every suggestion, even vodka in place of water, but as soon as the dough was worked, even barely enough to combine it, the gluten developed and the crust turned tough. Once I had the mill, I started experimenting with soft wheat, which worked much better, though I found I needed to sift out the coarser pieces.
The best solution turned out to be White Sonora soft white wheat. Finely ground and sifted through a 40-mesh sieve, it makes a wonderfully fine pastry flour for pie crust, puff pastry, and even cakes. Sifting yields about 88% fine pastry flour, leaving about 12% by weight as a bran fraction, a mix of coarser bran flakes and oily bits of germ. Using a 3:2:1 ratio by weight of flour, shortening, and water, that sifted flour makes an excellent, very flavorful pie crust. The gluten in White Sonora develops slowly, so the dough can be rolled, folded, and rerolled without becoming tough or elastic.
That left a question: what to do with all that nutritious bran? The answer was to put it into the waffle and pancake batter. The recipe below has been refined over time, and the proportions work for both waffles and pancakes. Adding the bran left over from sifting the pastry flour is optional for this waffle and pancake recipe, but it really adds a nice touch!
About the grains
White Sonora is one of the oldest wheats in North America, brought north by Spanish explorers and missionaries into what is now northwestern Mexico and the American Southwest. It is a soft white wheat with a naturally sweet, buttery flavor, a favorite for pastries, pancakes, tortillas, and biscuits. Amber Eden® is a rare heritage hard white wheat grown by Palouse Heritage. This grain was introduced about 1915 to the Pacific Northwest where USDA testing reported its flour to be light colored, high in protein, and superior for breadmaking. These grains combined create the perfect blend for fluffy pancakes and waffles!
Ingredients
225 g (1 cup) White Sonora soft white wheat berries
75 g (1/3 cup) Amber Eden® hard white wheat berries
50 g (1/2 cup) bran, sifted from White Sonora flour (see story above…this is optional)
6 g (1 tsp) salt
30 g (2 Tbsp) sugar
1 g (1/4 tsp) ascorbic acid (vitamin C powder)
1.5 g (1/2 tsp) instant yeast
15 g (2 tsp) corn syrup, optional
100 g (2 whole) eggs
450 g (2 cups) water, boiled and cooled to room temperature
30 g (2 Tbsp) canola oil
5 g (1 tsp) vanilla extract
Pancake after flipping
Method
Grind the White Sonora and Amber Eden® berries together into a large bowl that can be closed with a lid. The batter will roughly double, so leave room.
Add the bran, salt, sugar, ascorbic acid, and yeast, and mix well.
Weigh in the corn syrup (if using), the eggs, and the water, and mix to a pourable batter.
Weigh in the canola oil and vanilla, and mix well.
Cover and let the batter rise at room temperature until it shows good yeast activity.
Move the covered bowl to the refrigerator. The chilled batter can be used directly.
Waffles: Follow the instructions for your specific waffle maker. It typically requires around 1/3 cup of batter, and cooks for 3-5 minutes, or until the steam slows down.
Pancakes: On medium-low to medium heat, scoop around 1/3 cup of batter onto a buttered pan. Wait for small bubbles to form across the surface (about 2-3 minutes) then flip and let cook for another 2 minutes. They are done when it no longer sticks to the pan and is golden brown.
Notes
Boiled water: use water that has been boiled and cooled to room temperature. Boiling removes chlorine and neutralizes microorganisms, so only a very small amount of yeast is needed.
Ascorbic acid (vitamin C) is a yeast enhancer as well as an antioxidant.
Corn syrup adds very little sweetness; it is there as a dough conditioner.
Pancakes vs. waffles: if you'll mostly make pancakes, thin the batter with a little more water.
Keeping it going: the batter keeps in the refrigerator for about a week (if it lasts that long) and can be renewed by adding more flour, sugar, eggs, oil, and water.
Making your own bran: finely grind White Sonora berries and sift through a 40-mesh sieve. Keep the fine flour for pie crust and pastry, and save the bran for this batter.