This recipe requires your sourdough starter to be fed on a 12-hour schedule. If you usually refresh every 24 hours, simply begin feeding your starter every 12 hours two days in advance. Once you reach the fourth feeding, you can start making waffles from your discard. Similarly, if you typically keep your starter in the fridge, bring it to room temperature and feed every 12 hours for 3 days before waffling up.
| Level: | Intermediate |
| Total: | 9 hr |
| Active: | 40 min |
| Yield: | 4 Belgian waffles |
Ingredients
- 125 grams discarded Sourdough Starter (unfed), recipe follows
- 1 cup whole milk
- 170 grams unbleached, all-purpose flour
- 1 large egg, separated
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
- 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
- Nonstick spray
- 125 grams all-purpose, unbleached flour
- 125 grams filtered water, room temperature
- 100 grams all-purpose, unbleached flour
- 100 grams filtered water, room temperature
Instructions
- Combine the starter, milk and flour in a medium bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Rest for 8 hours at room temperature, until the batter is light, full of bubbles, and roughly doubled in size. (If you’d like to make these for breakfast, you can refrigerate the batter overnight after this 8-hour rest.)
- Stir the egg yolk, butter, sugar and salt into the starter mixture until just combined and set aside.
- Beat the egg white and cream of tartar with a hand mixer on high until stiff peaks form, about 1 to 2 minutes, then fold the egg white into the batter using as few folds as possible to keep it from deflating (see Cook’s Note). Rest the batter at room temperature for 20 minutes.
- Heat a Belgian waffle iron on medium heat. When hot, lightly coat both plates with nonstick spray. Ladle the recommended amount of waffle batter onto the iron according to the manufacturer’s recommendations and cook until crisp and golden brown. Serve immediately or cool on a rack and wrap in plastic wrap followed by foil and freeze for up to 3 months.
- To begin: Mix together 125 grams flour and 125 grams water with a clean hand in a medium glass bowl. Cover the bowl with a tea towel and let sit undisturbed at room temperature until the mixture is full of bubbles and has nearly doubled in size, usually 2 to 3 days. During this time, yeasts and bacteria from the air and from the flour and probably from you will set up housekeeping in the bowl (see Cook’s Note).
- For daily feeding: Peel back any crust that may have formed and transfer 20% of the culture (50 grams) to a clean, wide-mouthed jar. Stir in 100 grams flour and 100 grams water, loosely screw on the lid and stash at room temperature for 24 hours. (The culture will have a stinky-sour smell at this point.) Discard the rest of the original mixture.
- Repeat step 2 every 24 hours for 5 days. By then the culture should smell yeasty-sweet-sour, which means you’re ready to put the starter to work. The waffles are to be made with the discarded percentage of starter.
Nutrition Facts
| Serving Size | 1 of 4 servings |
| Calories | 529 |
| Total Fat | 16 g |
| Saturated Fat | 9 g |
| Carbohydrates | 82 g |
| Dietary Fiber | 3 g |
| Sugar | 7 g |
| Protein | 14 g |
| Cholesterol | 83 mg |
| Sodium | 519 mg |
Reviews
wish he had a larger quantity or a scalable feature.
I used a very robust starter that has been going for about a year, fed primarily whole wheat and bread flours. It produced some very tangy waffles, I think I will add a little more sugar next time. The texture was good, and my family liked them.
My kids and I loved these! Unfortunately my waffle machine broke after the first waffle, and I used the rest of the batter to make pancakes. They turned out great!
I started the night before and put the dough (starter, milk, flour) the fridge. Took the dough out about an hour before cooking to let it warm up. Wowie these were, as my husband put it, “killer waffles” Yum!
These were amazing! My family loved them and I was wondering if I could make them with fed starter the same as unfed starter.
These waffles have ruined me for any other waffles, ever. I kind of cheated and used buttermilk because that was all I had and they are still awesome.
Love these waffles! I’ve made them twice now. I am dairy-free by necessity and I’ve tried with both oat milk and vegan butter as well as oat milk and coconut oil. Both worked very well, though I think I prefer the coconut oil. They seemed to brown up a little bit better on the outside. These also freeze well!
I really loved the taste of these. I want to make them with ice cream. I’m having a great time with sourdough everything while in quarantine. So much fun to play with dough. Another great recipe.
I was skeptical of leaving milk out overnight, but it’s 12 hours later and not sick! The waffles had a pleasant texture but tasted like cottage cheese. Truly a cheesy flavor. Not sure I’ll use ripe sourdough starter again for waffles (pancakes, too). Best leave waffles as waffles.
These are the BEST waffles I have ever had! We always make Alton’s really good waffle recipe but this one is even better. Super tangy! Sadly it only made 3 waffles in our cuisinart circle shaped waffle maker so I’ll be doubling it next time.