Another sourdough discard cake for your unfed starter
The sourdough chocolate cake I posted last week was a big hit on my blog, in my mom’s kitchen and at my friend’s house, where I dropped off a cake on the weekend for her family.
So I decided to try a carrot cake version. OMG it’s good. My 88-year old mother, who had never heard the term “vegan,” said she couldn’t believe this delicious cake contains neither dairy nor eggs.
Like the chocolate cake, I based this carrot cake on a depression-era cake that my daughter MK used to bake regularly when she cooked in our community kitchen for a large crowd and had to attempt to stay within a budget.
I also came up with a delicious and easy coconut buttercream frosting for this cake or for the chocolate one. It takes only a few minutes to make and does not contain dairy. The cake tastes delicious either with or without the frosting—I tested both just to be sure.
Let them eat discard
If you don’t have a sourdough starter, go here for directions to start and nurture one that won’t send you over the edge. For discard recipes like this cake, use the unfed, inactive starter you remove from your sourdough jar at each feeding. It won’t have many bubbles in it—if any—and will taste quite sour. That doesn’t make a sour cake though.
And for more discard recipes, see the following posts:
Not sure what’s going on with your starter? Go here for the answers to your sourdough starter questions.
Sourdough Discard Vegan Carrot Cake
Ingredients
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 cup lightly packed brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup golden raisins
- ½ cup unfed discarded starter straight from the refrigerator, stirred down
- ½ cup cold water
- 1 tablespoon vinegar white, cider, or strong homemade
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- ⅓ cup olive oil plus more for greasing the pan
- 1½ cups shredded carrots
- 1 recipe coconut buttercream frosting if desired
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Generously grease an 8-inch by 8-inch glass or metal baking pan.
- In a medium bowl, combine flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, baking soda and salt. Mix well. Stir in raisins.
- In another medium bowl, combine unfed discarded starter, cold water, vinegar, vanilla extract and olive oil. Stir in shredded carrots.
- Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients. Stir until moistened and pour batter into prepared pan.
- Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until a fork inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Cool the pan on a baking rack.
- If frosting the cake, allow it to cool completely first.
Notes
- All of my sourdough recipes use a 100 percent hydration sourdough starter, meaning the starter contains equal parts water and flour by weight (not volume).