How to make Plum Layer Cake using Sourdough Discard

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Sweet, fruity, with a slight almond taste, this Sourdough Plum Layer Cake is a show-stopper. Great for morning or afternoon tea, or as an after-dinner treat, it is sure to satisfy your sweet tooth, without all the nasties. This cake cleverly uses up a great portion of your sourdough discard, plus is egg free, sugar free and dairy free!

Why Make a Sourdough Cake?

With sourdough breadmaking, you have the main aim, which is to make beautiful, easily digestible, artisan bread.

However, a major part of maintaining a sourdough starter is to feed it regularly, and with feeding comes the by-product of sourdough discard.

Sourdough discard is the portion of sourdough starter that you remove when feeding, and replace it with the “food” of water and flour.

I never discard my sourdough discard! There are so many wonderful uses for it, let alone simply feeding it and starting out another batch of starter (it is just ordinary sourdough starter, after all!).

I have made bagels, pancakes, pizza, tortillas, pasta and cookies from my discard.

And now, I am really enjoying using it up in these wonderful cake recipes! I love using up discard in cakes, because you can throw a lot in there, and therefore feed your starter well. Using sourdough discard in cakes improves the crumb and texture of the cake.

Plus, you have a beautiful, healthy, delicious cake for your pains! What could be better than that?

How big is this Sourdough Plum Cake?

This is a large Sourdough Cake recipe. It fills a 23cm round cake tin, and the cake can be easily sliced into 3 layers.

Because it is so large, it takes about an hour to cook at a lower temperature. The batter is quite dense, so keep an eye on it. It could easily take 75 minutes.

Iced and layered, this sourdough plum cake makes a tall cake that is just begging to be plunged into!

Do you need to ferment the Cake Batter?

In short, no. And this cake will be a lot quicker to make if you don’t! Simply mix all the ingredients, and bake.

I prefer to ferment my cake batter for at least 7 hours. This is because of the white flour, which is quite bad for you. Fermenting the flour for a minimum of 7 hours makes it easier to digest and unlocks the anti-nutrients.

To ferment the flour portion of the cake, simply mix the flour, oil, water, and sourdough discard. Make sure there are no dry bits of flour.

Cover, and set aside for 7 hours (I just leave mine on my countertop). It’s as easy as that! You could do this in the morning at say, 7am, and it should be ready to add the other ingredients by 2pm.

While the flour is fermenting, you could prepare the plums by stoning and reducing them in a pot.

After 7 hours, add these and the rest of the ingredients to the fermented flour. Mix, and bake.

This cake does take about an hour to cook (unless you divide the batter into two smaller pans). It is an impressively large cake that makes 12 decent sized slices!

The Icing on the Plum Cake

For this Sourdough Plum Cake, I used yoghurt to make the icing.

I simply blitzed desiccated coconut into butter, and whisked it through the yoghurt. Coconut Butter (not to be confused with coconut oil) helps to set the yoghurt into a lovely, thick icing consistency.

Simply add sweetener to taste (I use Truvia) and Vanilla, and you’re good to go.

Using this simple frosting base, you could make a whole range of cake icings. Add cocoa for a chocolate frosting, or lemon, or orange or lime. A swirl of passionfruit curd would be utterly delicious!

You do not have to use yoghurt, either. I just like to because I always have it on hand, and it is less fattening than coconut cream. However, if you wanted to serve a fully vegan cake, coconut cream is a wonderful substitute.

Sourdough Vegan Cake Tips and Tricks:

A Sourdough Vegan Cake is actually super simple to make! There is no butter to melt, no eggs to beat, and no milk to curdle. But there are a couple of pressure points.

1. Mix it well

The first tip I would suggest is: do not under-mix.

My Sourdough Vegan cakes simply use sourdough discard, oil, water, and sometimes fruit as the liquid ingredients. With these ingredients, you simply have to mix, and they usually come together quite well.

The only tricky part is adding the other ingredients to the pre-ferment mixture (if you have chosen this route) once the 7 hours are up. By this time, the pre-fermented flour mixture could be as heavy as bread dough. It is tricky to loosen this up in order to incorporate the other ingredients thoroughly.

What I usually have to do is get in with my hands and squelch it until I can see no traces of the pre-fermented flour mixture. Believe me, you do not want this to make it to the final baked cake, because it is flavourless and not sweet. That is what I would consider undesirable marbling,

But you really do have to get engaged with the final mix – get your hands in and squelch it together. It may take a bit of time.

2. Bake it right

The other tip I would have is to be careful not to under-bake the cake. My sourdough vegan cakes are all quite large, dense cake batters and so they need a long time in the oven at a lower temperature, to ensure even and thorough cooking.

I would be surprised if your cake takes less than an hour, unless you have divided the batter into 2 smaller pans. Mine usually take 1 hour minim, and can often take up to 75 minutes. Every oven is different, so keep an eye on the cake when it gets to the 45-50 minute mark.