Chocolate Sourdough Cake
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This chocolate sourdough cake is a great way to use up extra sourdough starter. The flavor and texture are so delicious!
Sourdough bread is one of my favorites. I always choose it when given the option at a restaurant, and I love to keep it on hand for sandwiches at home.
Whenever I’ve had sourdough starter on hand over the years, I’ve made this chocolate sourdough cake with some of the sourdough discard. The chocolate flavor really shines through in this single layer cake.
Making Homemade Sourdough Starter
I was so excited to learn that I could make my own sourdough starter with nothing but flour, water, air, and time. Here’s a tutorial about how to make your own starter if you don’t already have any.
Apparently it’s best to wait several weeks before attempting a classic sourdough bread recipe with a new starter. This chocolate cake is the perfect thing to experiment with while you’re waiting for your starter to be ready for the next stage.
This chocolate sourdough cake uses maple syrup as the sweetener, and it’s not very sweet. It’s more of a snack than a dessert cake. It tastes delicious, and nobody can tell that it has sourdough in it.
Chocolate Sourdough Cake Tips
If your sourdough starter is especially thick, you’ll need to add more water in the first step of the recipe. Remember that you’ll need to evenly add this mixture into the other cake batter ingredients.
For a more decadent dessert, add chocolate chips to the batter. You could also top this cake with chocolate ganache or chocolate buttercream frosting.
Try these delicious sourdough crackers for another way to use up your extra sourdough starter. And if you don’t have any starter on hand, I have a couple other chocolate cake recipes you’ll enjoy: this double chocolate bundt cake and this gluten-free chocolate zucchini cake.
Chocolate Sourdough Cake
Recommended Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 cup fed sourdough starter
- 3/4 cup water
- 2 cups white whole wheat flour or all purpose flour
- 3/4 cup cocoa powder
- 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup maple syrup
- 1/2 cup melted coconut oil
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
- Mix together the starter, water, and flour in a bowl. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let it sit overnight. (Note: If your starter is very thick, add a bit of extra water so it will mix evenly into the cake mixture.)
- In the morning, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9 x 13 inch pan.
- In a medium bowl, mix together the cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. In a large mixing bowl, stir together the eggs, maple syrup, coconut oil, and vanilla extract. Stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients (egg mixture). Then add the sourdough flour mixture that was sitting overnight, and stir to fully combine. (Again, if the starter mixture seems too thick to blend evenly into the chocolate mixture, add a bit of water before adding it to the chocolate mixture so it will blend in smoothly.)
- Pour the cake batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let it cool on a cooling rack before cutting.
Approximate Nutrition Info
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Sourdough Chocolate Cake Recipe Price Breakdown
This cake costs $5.53 to make. It contains 16 servings, so the cost per serving is $.35. This is a delicious snack that you can feel good about eating!
Just mixed water, starter and flour. It is very thick, kinda heavy. Is that the way it is supposed to be?
Thank you
If it looks too thick, add a bit of extra water. The mixture will need to blend into the remaining cake ingredients.
Delicious and fluffy! Thanks for the recipe.
I’m excited to try this recipe however, that’s a lot of maple syrup. How much sugar can I substitute?
Willough, you can swap sugar for the same amount of maple syrup. I would add a tablespoon of water, too.
I do not have coconut oil, could I use another type of oil?
This sounds delish – been trying to come up with ways to use up my starter discard so I don’t waste it 🙂
Yes, Leslie, any mild oil should be fine. You could try avocado oil or organic canola oil. Melted butter should also work.
When i was making this i was like “no way this is going to turn into a cake” but it actually turned into a cake and it smells delicious. I have yet to try it but I’m making cream cheese frosting for it right now and im really excited. Looks awesome.
Wow! It’s the first time I’ve made a sourdough cake. This was fantastic. To be honest, I used my unfed starter and let it sit out longer in a warmer area. It was beautiful. Light and fluffy with a medium tang.
Hi Annemarie,
Thank you so much for sharing this recipe and for blogging about an important topic! I have been looking for a sourdough cake recipe! I am very excited to try it and have been learning a lot about fermentation lately. I make my own einkorn sourdough bread and was wondering how you decided on the proportions of starter to water and flour? I would love to understand how that works. Thank you so much!
Trial and error! This proportion comes out with a nice texture.
I was super doubtful when I mixed my fed starter with the water and flour because it rose so high. And the texture looked really weird when I mixed all the ingredients together (does not look like traditional cake batter, it was lighter texture almost middle of cake and bread). Boy was I WRONG. This came out PERFECTLY DELICIOUS!! I even subbed 1/2 of the oil with a banana and it was still delicious. Thanks for the recipe!!
Thanks for the feedback. I’m so glad you liked it!
Thank you for the recipe! If I were to make regular muffins how long should I bake them?
You can bake these in muffin form for about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. Enjoy!
Thank you for your reply
6 weeks to make bread? No way! I made my starter from scratch 3 weeks ago and I’m already on my second batch of bread. First batch came out great last weekend and todays was too. My starter (Adam) is growing so fast…I was glad to find this recipe because we can only eat so many sourdough pancakes!
Lovely recipe. The cake is very moist and fluffy (I whisked the egg whites separatelly, as I usually do). Tried a different version replacing the wheat flour for oats and the result was still great. Highly recommend!
So glad you liked it! Thanks for letting me know. I’ll have to try the oat version.
I am so intrigued by this recipe! I’ve never heard of a sourdough cake before and now I want to try!
Annemarie you are inspiring us this time! Ben just reminded me that Alaskan starter is STILL in the back of our fridge, maybe it’s time we fire her up again too!!
Do it! You’ll be so happy to taste that bread again.
Great ideas!!
This looks sooooo delicious!!!
Thanks, Jill.
That’s awesome that you made your own starter! I’ve been thinking about doing it, but didn’t know if I would actually follow through with it. You’re making me think I should 🙂
You should do it! It’s so easy. You can stick it in the fridge and only feed it once a week when things get busy. I’m not sure if I would take on this project right before having a baby, though:)