Sourdough Apple Donut Cake

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Why You’ll Love This Sourdough Apple Cake

I am the snacking cake type rather than the layer cake type. They’re great eaten cold from the fridge, while you’re running out the door. And they can pass as breakfast, especially when they have donut in the title.

This Sourdough Apple Donut Cake is ready to charm all of your fall loving hearts, sending scents of apples, brown sugar, and cinnamon throughout your house. It has all the flavors of a warm, soft apple donut and a crisp, crackly cinnamon sugar top (!!) that is the perfect compliment. Eaten warm with a little salted butter is a dream. This cake is incredibly simple to make, no stand mixer needed, and can be in the oven with less than 20 minutes of prep time.

Using Thinly Sliced Apples Rather Than Diced Apples:

Most apple cakes use diced apples, which can be a little awkward and heavy, but here I’ve used finely sliced apples slices so they nearly disappear into the crumb. This gives the cake apple flavor in every bite. To make the paper thin slices I use a mandoline, then run my knife through them once more.

I learned this smart technique from Pinch of Yum’s Cinnamon Sugar Apple Cake, which inspired this recipe – it looked so delicious and cozy! And I thought it would be fun to bring a sourdough element to it and give you a fall sourdough snack cake as a follow up to my Sourdough Discard Rhubarb Cake for spring.

Recipe Testing Notes:

Using Lindsay’s recipe as a starting, I knew I wanted this to be a smaller cake in an 8×8 inch cake pan, as it’s just two of us here. From there, it was a bit of a challenge to get the moisture level right while incorporating the sourdough discard and a whole egg. To make up for that, I pulled back on the milk and flour. The first 3 tests were all a bit heavy from too much apple. I wanted it to be more light and fluffy, yet still be apple forward.

It also needed a bit less sugar and more salt than I assumed, the later I find to be the case when developing any type of sourdough discard recipe. I’m not sure why that is, but I’m guessing the acids in the starter neutralize the salt more? Baking powder resulted in a fluffier crumb, rather than baking soda. And a few more tests later, we got there!

What does sourdough discard do for cakes?

Sourdough discard doesn’t make cakes taste sour. Instead, it makes them fluffy and soft because it increases the acidity of the cake batter, which weakens the gluten in flour. And because it has already been fermented, the gluten in the sourdough discard itself has also been weakened. It has the same effect in this fabulous Sourdough Discard Pumpkin Bread and my Blueberry Sourdough Muffins!

The other thing discard does in baking is bring out the flavors of other ingredients in the recipe. This is due to the naturally occurring alcohols and acids that develop in sourdough starter, and both are flavor enhancers. That means the main components of this cake, apples and cinnamon, really shine.

How to Make An Amazing Sourdough Apple Cake:

• Stir together milk and lemon juice, set aside. (This is a like a faux buttermilk.)
• Use mandoline (or very sharp knife) to cut your apple wedges into paper thin slices. Then run your knife through them vertically to cut into sticks, then horizontally so the sticks are kind of like rectangles. This doesn’t have to be perfect, you’re just trying to make the pieces smaller.
• To a large mixing bowl, add brown sugar, egg, and sourdough discard. Whisk together until homogenous. Add oil, milk mixture, and vanilla. Whisk again
• To a small bowl, add flour, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg. Whisk.
• Add flour mixture to wet ingredients, and use a spatula to stir until mostly combined, but they are still flour streaks left. Then add apples and fold in to distribute.
• Scrape batter into a greased or parchment lined 8×8 baking pan (do not use glass). Use back of spoon to even out the batter. The mix topping ingredients together and evenly sprinkle over the cake. Bake!

What Type of Apples Are Best for Making a Cake?

In terms of sweetness level, I like to go with an apple that is somewhere in between on the sweet/tart spectrum. Then it’s important to use an apple variety that is crisp and holds its shape a bit. A few of my favorites that fall into this category include:

• Cosmic Crisp (my favorite for baking and what I used in this recipe)
• Honeycrisp
• Sweet Tango

How long is sourdough discard good for?

You can keep sourdough discard in your refrigerator for up to 10 days. The discard will be more sour the longer it stays in the fridge. So for something like this cake, sourdough chocolate chip cookies, or sourdough pumpkin bread, where I don’t want the sourness to come through, I use discard that is less than 5 days old.

Your discard might accumulate a little liquid on the top while it’s in the fridge, which is called hooch, simply meaning alcohol that is the byproduct of fermentation. You can simply pour the liquid off into garbage, then scrape the very top off, and use the rest as discard.

More Sourdough Discard Recipes:

• Flaky 5-Ingredient Sourdough Discard Biscuits
• Banana Chocolate Chip Sourdough Discard Muffins
• Big Cluster Sourdough Discard Granola

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Sourdough Apple Donut Cake

This moist and flavorful apple cake is made with sourdough discard and tastes just like an apple donut! The apples are thinly sliced so they disappear into the soft and fluffy crumb, and the cinnamon sugar topping bakes into a papery thin, crackly crust. Each piece is pure fall delight. So easy to make, no mixer needed.

5 from 5 votes

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Prep Time :18 minutes minutes

Cook Time :35 minutes minutes

Yield: 9 pieces

Author: Amanda Paa

Ingredients

• 80 grams whole milk
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 205 grams of quartered apple wedges
• 130 grams brown sugar
• 1 egg, room temperature
• 70 grams sourdough discard, room temp preferred so that it is easy to incorporate
• 40 grams sunflower or grapeseed oil
• 3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 135 grams all purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon + 1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt
• pinch of nutmeg
• For topping: 3 tablespoons granulated sugar + 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon + pinch of salt

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Equipment

• 8-inch square cake pan
• Mandoline Slicer

Instructions 

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
• Stir together milk and lemon juice, set aside. (This is a like a faux buttermilk.)
• Use mandoline (or very sharp knife) to cut your apple wedges into paper thin slices. Then run your knife through them vertically to cut into sticks, then horizontally so the sticks are kind of like rectangles. This doesn't have to be perfect, you're just trying to make the pieces smaller.
• To a large mixing bowl, add brown sugar, egg, and sourdough discard. Whisk together until homogenous. Add oil, milk mixture, and vanilla. Whisk again to combine.
• To a small bowl, add flour, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg. Whisk.
• Add flour mixture to wet ingredients, and use a spatula to stir until about half combined. Then add apples and fold in to distribute, just until no flour streaks are left. Be sure to not overmix.
• Scrape batter into a greased or parchment lined 8×8 baking pan (do not use glass). Use back of spoon to even out the batter. The mix topping ingredients together and evenly sprinkle over the cake.
• Turn OVEN DOWN to 325 degrees F and bake for 35 to 38 minutes, until toothpick comes out with a few moist crumbs, but not wet. Let cool and serve.

Notes

*Recipe adapted from Pinch of Yum.

*An oven thermometer is always helpful to make sure your oven is actually the temperature it is reading. I always use one, as my oven runs hot. This can negatively impact your bake. 

*Do not decrease the amount of sugar in the topping; it is not too sweet and gives this cake the gorgeous and delicious crackly top.