Sourdough Chocolate Cake

I have recently switched to cooking with all whole grains for my husbands health. Since he loves sourdough I have cultivated a whole wheat sourdough starter so I can make a whole grain sourdough for him. However, I am finding that I have abundantly more sourdough starter than I need to make bread for us. So I started researching other ways of using up the extra starter and found many interesting ideas from some really old cookbooks, so now I’m going to play with them and updating the recipes to suit our tastes.


The first recipe I am going to try is actually the last one I collected but I was so surprised to find it in a collection of sourdough recipes that I was intrigued. It was actually a chocolate cake with two ingredients I never thought I would find in a chocolate cake: sourdough and cold coffee. I absolutely never put espresso powder or anything else “coffee flavored” in any of my recipes b/c I can’t stand coffee. But this recipe sounded so interesting that I decided to break that rule and raided my husbands coffee pot for the ¾ cup of coffee for this cake. This has met with rave reviews so far and is one of the simplest chocolate cakes I have every made. It was easy, yet stunningly delicious! While the dark chocolate buttercream icing wasn't included in the original recipe I did some research and modified it a bit to get the recipe below.  It really "takes the cake".



Sourdough Chocolate Cake


½ Cup Sourdough Starter
1½ Cups all Purpose white Flour (I use White Whole Wheat)
2 Cups sugar
¾ Cup Powdered Cocoa
1 Teaspoon baking powder
2 Teaspoons baking soda
2 Eggs
1 Cup milk
½ Cup vegetable oil
¾ Cup cold coffee
1 Tablespoon vanilla


Put the starter in a large bowl, cover loosely and allow to stand at room temperature until active and bubbling – at least an hour. Then add the reat of the ingredients, in the order given, beating well after each addition.

Grease and flour two 9-inch cake pans, pour the batter, which will be thin, and bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes, or until the layers test done when poked with a toothpick.

Allow to cool about 10 minutes before removing from the pans, then finish cooling the layers on wire rack. Do not frost until the cake is completely cold.

This is wonderful with dark chocolate butter cream icing.



Dark Chocolate Buttercream Icing


1 cup butter or margarine (NEVER, EVER, EVER use shortening in an icing recipe!)
7 (1 ounce each) unsweetened chocolate squares, melted
1 teaspoon clear vanilla extract
4 cups (approx. 1 lb.) confectioners' sugar sifted
4-5 tablespoons milk
3-4 tablespoons light corn syrup or vanilla infused syrup


Cream shortening and butter with electric mixer. Add cocoa and vanilla. Gradually add sugar, one cup at a time, beating well on medium speed. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl often. When all sugar has been mixed in, icing will appear dry. Add milk and beat at medium speed until light and fluffy.

Add 3-4 tablespoons light corn syrup per recipe to thin icing if desired. Keep icing covered with a damp cloth until ready to use.