I've made sourdough chocolate cakes before, but I always like trying out new recipes, so I figured I'd give this one from Cultures for Health a go.

It's... alright. The Kidlet loves it. And I do find it acceptably tasty. It's just not amazing. To be fair, I did fiddle with the recipe a little bit. So maybe my results are not an accurate reflection of the original recipe. That's fine. I was trying to cut the sugar and fat a little to aim for something a bit healthier.

Honestly, it wasn't that the cake tasted too lean or insufficiently sweet or anything. That was all fine. My main complaint was a lack of depth to the chocolate flavour. (And the batter was a little stiff, although the resulting cake was moist enough, so I don't think that's a huge problem.)

For this iteration, I tried replacing half the butter with a mashed banana and replaced the sugar with a mix of Splenda brown sugar blend and monk fruit sweetener. I think next time I might try adding even more banana and experiment with replacing the butter with cacao paste. The cacao paste is pretty high fat, so it should still give some richness while also boosting the chocolate flavour. As usual, I've written up the recipe to reflect these (as yet untested) changes.

Sourdough Chocolate Snack Cake

Adapted from Cultures for Health

Ingredients

• 1/4 c. cacao paste wafers
• 1/8 tsp. instant coffee crystals
• 2 Tbsp. boiling water
• 2 very ripe bananas, mashed
• 1/4 c. Splenda brown sugar blend (or 1/2 c. brown sugar)
• 1/4 c. 1:1 monk fruit sweetener
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 125g ripe (active/fed) sourdough starter @ 100% hydration
• 1 c. all-purpose flour¹
• 1/4 c. natural (non-alkalized) cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. coarse sea salt, ground
• 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/2 c. walnuts, chopped

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F) and grease and flour a 20cm (8") square tin.
2. Combine the cacao paste with the instant coffee and pour the boiling water over them. Cover and set aside.
3. Combine the bananas, Splenda, and monk fruit sweetener and beat until well-mixed.
4. Check to see if the cacao paste has melted. If not stir it and give it a quick zap in the microwave. (Be careful! Don't burn it.)
5. Add the cacao poaste mixture to the banana mixture and beat to combine.
6. Beat in the egg and the vanilla.
7. Beat in the sourdough starter.
8. Sift the flour, cocoa powder, and baking soda on top without mixing.
9. Add the salt and cinnamon on top of the other dry ingredients.
10. Beat until just combined.
11. Fold in the walnuts.
12. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top.
13. Bake at 180°C (350°F) for ~30 minutes.
14. Let cool in tin for ~10 minutes, then turn out onto wire rack to finish cooling.
15. Serve plain, iced, or dusted with icing sugar.

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¹ I may switch this out for soft whole wheat flour at some point, but I didn't want to make too many changes at once. ^Back