Every time you feed your sourdough starter you have to discard a fair amount of it. There’s no avoiding it: Doing so keeps your mixture fresh and active and stops it from developing a powerful vinegary smell.
It does raise the question, though, of whether you should simply throw away your discard or find a use for it. Enter sourdough crumpets. There are actually many things you can do with your discard starter (see MOB’s sourdough banana bread recipe) but crumpets are probably the thing I turn to most.
It is deeply satisfying to watch the alchemy of the whole process: dropping in the mixture and watching the bubbles rise to the surface and burst as the crumpets form. The results are delicious.
The only other ingredients they require are a little more flour, as well as baking powder and water. I cook mine in little egg rings, which you can get for a few pounds off Amazon and which give them their crumpet-y roundness, but you can equally just pour some starter into a small frying pan and let it coat the bottom and you’ll end up with a giant crumpet. Go on, try it.
