Julie Clark
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Sourdough Pumpkin Pancakes
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Sourdough Pumpkin Pancakes made with discard! Easy pancakes that bake up fluffy and with amazing pumpkin spice flavor.
Our family has always been head over heels for our sourdough pancakes. But this past year people all over the world have fallen in love with them as well! With many of you making sourdough starter, ya’ll have wondered what to do with it and sourdough pancakes is one of the easiest things to make.
You loved our sourdough discard pumpkin bread, so we tweaked our sourdough pancakes to make a pumpkin version. I think you’ll love our sourdough pumpkin pancakes. Take a peek, then I’ll share how to make them!
Why you’ll love this recipe:
- soft fluffy pancakes
- sourdough and pumpkin spice flavor combination
- easy to make with sourdough discard
- perfect for fall weekends or Thanksgiving morning
What is sourdough discard?
You can read our complete sourdough guide, but once you start making sourdough, you either have to bake with it or discard part of the start or it will keep growing. In order to not be wasteful, you can make recipes with the sourdough discard. These discard recipes use other leavening agents (baking powder, baking soda or yeast) to get a rise in the baked good. See below the recipe for some of our favorites.
Tips for Making Sourdough Pumpkin Pancakes
- Use pure pumpkin puree. NOT canned pumpkin pie filling.
- Notice that this recipe does not use eggs. Pumpkin is often used in place of eggs in recipes so no extra eggs are needed.
- The sourdough starter does NOT have to be active. If it is a little active, it will be fine to use, but it can be sourdough discard. Notice in the recipe I gave the weight of the starter I used in grams so you can get an accurate measurement, whether there are bubbles in the starter or not.
- Add more spices if you’d like! We used two nice size tablespoons of pumpkin pie spice AND two teaspoons of cinnamon. We like the spice. 🙂
- Mix the wet ingredients separately from the dry ingredients. Then combine the two and mix only until combined. Do not overmix the pancakes or they will be tough. It is ok if there are lumps in the batter. They’ll cook out.
- Pancake griddles are amazing if you make pancakes often. Use butter to grease the griddle if you like a little crispy edge. Use cooking spray if you want lower fat.
- Scoop the pancake batter with a ½ cup measuring cup so they are all about the same size. This will give you about 16 5″ pancakes. You can always make them smaller or larger if you’d like.
Toppings for Pumpkin Pancakes
- Cinnamon Butter
- Honey Butter Syrup
- Powdered Sugar Glaze
- Homemade Cinnamon Chips: These are delicious inside the pancakes!
Sourdough Pumpkin Pancakes
Sourdough Pumpkin Pancakes made with discard! Easy pancakes that bake up fluffy and with amazing pumpkin spice flavor.
Servings 16
Prep Time 5 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Ingredients
- 1 cup sourdough starter 250 grams
- 2 cups milk
- 1 cup pumpkin puree 245 grams
- 2 tablespoons canola oil 26 grams
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 cups all-purpose flour 270 grams
- 2 teaspoons baking powder 10 grams
- 1 teaspoon baking soda 6 grams
- 2 tablespoons granulated sugar 26 grams
- 1 teaspoon salt 6 grams
- 2 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice 11 grams
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon 6 grams
Instructions
- In a large bowl, mix the sourdough starter, milk, pumpkin puree, oil and vanilla. Mix well.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and soda, sugar, salt and spices.
- Add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and mix just until combined. Do not overmix! It is ok if there are a few small lumps. They’ll cook out.
- Spray a pancake griddle with cooking spray or grease well with butter. Heat to about 300-350 degrees.
- Use a ½ cup measuring cup to scoop pancake batter on the hot griddle. Cook until the pancake starts bubbling on top, then flip the pancake.
- Cook for an additional 1-2 minutes or until the pancake is cooked through.
- Serve warm with butter and syrup.
Notes
Made 16 5” pancakes.
Use ½ cup batter per pancake. The calories shown are based on the recipe making 16 pancakes, with 1 serving being 1 pancake. Since different brands of ingredients have different nutritional information, the calories shown are just an estimate. **We are not dietitians and recommend you seek a nutritionist for exact nutritional information.**
Use ½ cup batter per pancake. The calories shown are based on the recipe making 16 pancakes, with 1 serving being 1 pancake. Since different brands of ingredients have different nutritional information, the calories shown are just an estimate. **We are not dietitians and recommend you seek a nutritionist for exact nutritional information.**
Nutrition
Calories: 121kcal | Carbohydrates: 20g | Protein: 3g | Fat: 3g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 3mg | Sodium: 229mg | Potassium: 144mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 4g | Vitamin A: 2432IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 70mg | Iron: 1mg
Sourdough Discard Recipes
These discard recipes use other leavening agents (baking powder, baking soda or yeast) to get a rise in the baked good. See some of our favorite recipes using sourdough discard here:
Pancake Recipes
Our family loves to make pancakes on Saturday mornings or for a weeknight brinner. If you are looking for a new type of pancake, give one of these a try:
Peanut Butter & Jelly Pancakes 
Cinnamon Roll Pancakes Red Velvet Pancakes Cottage Cheese Pancakes Gingerbread Pacnakes Cornmeal Pancakes 
Peanut Butter Streusel Pancakes Homemade Pancakes 
Buckwheat Pancakes 
Whole Wheat Cinnamon Pancakes Oatmeal Pancakes Buckeye Pancakes 
Strawberry Shortcake Pancakes 
Honey Wheat Pancakes
I couldn’t understand why this recipe didn’t have eggs. I added some and I will be baking it in the morning. I make a lot of pumpkin baked goods and they all use eggs. I have high hopes and I gave it a good rating anyway.
These are absolutely divine!! Made them for dinner because here in AZ it was 94 degrees today and I am dreaming of fall. 🙂 After seeing others’ comments about the quantity of spices (being a lot) I googled and saw that 2 Tbsp of pumpkin pie spice should weigh 16.6 grams, far more than the gram equivalent written. Being cautious, I decided to do 6 grams cinnamon and 7 grams pumpkin pie spice, and honestly they are amazing! I followed the rest of the recipe exactly and will be making this every fall for sure. One more note: I followed… Read more »
I’m making these in the morning, got a head start by mixing my dry ingredients. After, I read the comments… it looks like you have a typo… you call for TABLEspoons of pumkin pie spice, but list it as 11g. I went with the volume measure, and i hope my kids are not overwhelmed by the spices. Otherwise, these sound great, and i hope it works out.
Can you freeze these?
This is an amazing recipe! I love using my starter for things other than bread and this is a favorite with my husband. Thank you so much!
Our family loves these! We always add chocolate chips to the top with maple syrup. My boys don’t usually like sourdough food, but they love these yummy pancakes where you can’t taste the sourdough.
Oh lort. This recipe was sooo close to 5 stars! There was so much (cinnamon & pumpkin pie) Spice in this that I was able to fold space and time. Next time (there will be a next time), I will cut back the spices and maybe try an overnight ferment so I do not feel like I am sucking on whole spices. Perhaps some brown sugar in addition to the granulated sugar to sweeten it further. Everything else was on point. The pancakes would have had a velvety mouthfeel if not for the grittiness of the spices and the pancakes… Read more »
I just whipped up a batch this morning, and WOW great texture. Nice balance between thickness and fluffy- not too dense or tough. They weren’t very sweet, I used a little all spice because I didn’t have pumpkin pie spice. Next time I will add brown sugar instead of granulated and increase the amount if I want it sweeter. This recipe is great as a muffin or bread.
These pumpkin pancakes were absolutely delicious!! I replaced a little bit of the milk with buttermilk since I had it and used leftover roasted butternut squash. Also used a little less cinnamon. These will be a staple in our house! Thank you!
Sweet potato was a success! In these pancakes since I didn’t have pumpkin!
These are so delicious. I started them the night before by mixing the water, sourdough and flour together, I also threw in 3 tablespoons of buttermilk powder( I have a lot to use up 😬)
I also use your plain sourdough pancake recipe a lot and use the same method by starting the night before