One of the girls had a birthday recently and wanted a chocolate unicorn cake. I decided to go ahead and try my hand at a sourdough chocolate cake recipe. This cake isn’t overly sweet but was still delicious. I only wish we could have shared this deliciousness with more people!
This cake did take some prep time, but all the time and love put into it was worth it. Although I wasn’t super happy with how my unicorn hair turned out, the base was what mattered and it was a hit with my kids and husband.
the icing for our sourdough chocolate cake
For the icing, I didn’t want an overly sweet buttercream. So instead I opted for a swiss meringue buttercream (fancy sounding, I know.) If I could make it you can too! Here’s the recipe I used. I doubled it so I could have enough to put in the middle of my two cake pieces and make unicorn hair.
This involved granulated sugar (not powered), egg whites, vanilla, and salted butter. I was kinda nervous to try making it and grew more worried as I was whipping it with no changes. But after about 10 minutes it turned out fluffy & delicious! I doubled the recipe and ended up using 10 egg whites to ensure I had enough for the unicorn hair plus icing the cake.
time table for making the cake
6am I mixed the sourdough starter, flour, and water together then placed it, covered, on our fridge.
5pm As I was making supper, I mixed the rest of the batter together so it would be ready once our lasagne was done.
overnight I let the cake pieces sit on cooling racks overnight, covered, in our fridge. I didn’t want it to get dried out by sitting out overnight. But you definitely don’t have to let them sit that long!
8am I did my first layer of icing and stacked the cake pieces on each other with buttercream in between. I smoothed out the icing and put it in the freezer.
9am Added another layer of buttercream on the outside of the cake and smoothed it.
10am I added the final layer of buttercream on the outside then let the cake sit out at room temp.
noon The unicorn topper and hair was added right before we celebrated our daughter’s birthday.
You certainly don’t have to put it in the freezer as I did. If you plan to layer your icing, it does make it easier though.
If you’re as obsessed with using sourdough in your recipes as I am, make sure to save this for later so you can make it for a special occasion too!
Save for later
Sourdough Chocolate Cake Recipe
This sourdough chocolate cake recipe has a slight sourdough taste paired with a delicious chocolatey flavor! This cake wasn't overly sweet, but was still great as a birthday cake and topped with an egg white based buttercream.
Ingredients
- ½ cup starter
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 cup filtered water
- 3/4 cup coconut oil, melted
- 1.5 cups sugar
- 1 cup whole milk
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 1.5 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
- ¾ cup cocoa powder
- 2 eggs, beaten
Instructions
- Mix starter, flour, and water together. Let sit for 8-24 hours.
- Preheat oven to 350*f.
- Mix your beaten eggs, sugar, and milk together.
- Add rest of your ingredients (excluding your starter mix).
- Now combine your chocolate mix and your starter mixes.
- Place parchment paper or butter a 6 inch cake pan. Pour half your batter into pan.*
- Bake for 30-35 minutes. Stick a toothpick in and it should come out clean. If you gently press down the stop, it should spring back up.
- Place on a cooling rack and cook other half of batter if you don't have two pans.
- Allow to cool before icing.
Notes
If you have 2 6 inch cake pans, feel free to use them both at the same time. You may need to bake an extra 5 minutes or so.
I began my batter around 6 am so I baked my 2 cake pieces after supper. Then, I let my 2 cake pieces cool overnight before icing them.
My starter was no longer active. I had fed it the day before, but didn't use it as I had planned for supper so I ended up with a flat bubbly discard (but I feel you could use either!)
More Fermented Recipes
For those wondering how the cake ended up, here it is. I was disappointed that I didn’t have the right decorating tips, but our daughter was still happy.
Leave a Reply