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Sour Milk Pancakes
2 EGGS, SEPARATED 11/2 CUPS SOUR MILK I 2 CUPS FLOUR I TEASPOON SODA I TEASPOON SALT 2 TABLESPOONS SUGAR 3 TEASPOONS BAKING POWDER Beat egg yolks until light and lemon colored, and add to sour milk. Have dry ingredients sifted together, gradually stir in sour milk mixture, and lastly fold in stiffly beaten egg whites. If sour milk is very thick more may be needed to thin the batter, but try baking 1 cake first. And if you have no more sour milk, use sweet milk acidulated with a very little vinegar.
A standard camp-griddle batter from the era when sour milk was a byproduct every kitchen had on hand rather than something you had to manufacture. The leavening is doubled — soda for the acid in the milk, baking powder for lift — so the batter wants to go on the griddle promptly.
- Sour milk is not spoiled milkThe original means raw milk that has clabbered naturally into a thick, tangy, custard-like state. Pasteurized milk left out does not do this; it simply goes bad. Use full-fat buttermilk, or the vinegar trick the recipe itself offers — about 1 tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice stirred into a scant 1 1/2 cups of milk, left 10 minutes.
- Griddle heatFor a heavy skillet or griddle, aim for about 375F: a drop of water should skitter and vanish, not sit and steam. Grease lightly between batches.
- Don't beat the batterStir the wet into the sifted dry ingredients only until moistened, lumps and all, then fold the whites in with a light hand. Overworking develops gluten and the effect of the separated eggs is lost.
- The test cakeThe instruction to bake one cake first is the most useful line in the recipe. Clabbered milk and buttermilk vary enormously in thickness, so the single trial pancake tells you whether to thin the batter with more milk before committing the rest.
- Soda quantityOne teaspoon of soda is on the generous side for 1 1/2 cups of acidic milk, and any soda left unneutralized can taste soapy. Mix and cook promptly rather than letting the batter stand, or it loses its lift.
- YieldRoughly sixteen 4-inch pancakes, enough for four people at breakfast. Hold cooked cakes in a single layer in a warm oven or covered dish — stacked and covered tightly, they steam and go limp.
Sour-milk batters are among the oldest branch of the American pancake family, predating reliable commercial baking powder: cooks relied on the acid in naturally clabbered milk reacting with saleratus or soda for their leavening. This version belongs to the transitional moment when soda and baking powder were both used together, the soda to neutralize the milk's acid and the powder to guarantee rise no matter how sour the milk actually was. The advice about souring sweet milk with vinegar reflects a shift underway as pasteurized bottled milk made genuine clabber less common in many households.