Yes, the sourdough madness continues. I hate to throw food away and whilst I can’t always use my sourdough starter, especially when I have to remove half to feed it, I am now finding ways to bring it into other recipes.
We’ve had bread, and pizza, so now it’s time for something sweet. I’ve noticed too that there’s not too much fat used in these recipes, and I tend to use olive oil rather than butter, so I’m finding lower fat alternatives which has been a bonus.
As I was playing around with my cake recipe, the lovely Teleri at Olives & Artichokes, very kindly weighed, measured, baked and posted a gorgeous almond cherry cake made with olive oil (I’d asked her about her baking!). Thanks Teleri, this one is being baked today Up the Mountain!
I found several recipes for cakes on line and decided to be brave and adapt, mix and match. What was the worst that could happen? The chickies would have had cake for breakfast. Luckily for us, and unluckily for them, my first attempt worked well, so no Cherry Chickie Cake this time.
The texture of the finished cake was somewhere between a sponge cake and a scone (US biscuit). We ate it cold and it was lovely, not dry at all and not heavy (which I was concerned about). I think this would also be good warmed slightly and served with cream or ice cream. Or both.
Ingredients (cake serves 8-10 slices)
- 1 cup of sourdough starter
- 1/3 cup oil (I used olive oil)
- 1 egg, lightly beaten
- 1 cup of plain flour
- ¾ cup sugar
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
- 1 cup of chopped, stoned cherries
Mix together the starter, the oil and the egg. Add the dry ingredients and mix in well and then add the cherries.
Put into a greased and floured cake time and bake for about 45 minutes at 180 degrees (until a skewer poked into the centre of the cake comes out clean and the cake is lightly browned).
This cake doesn’t rise much, but my next experiment will be to make the batter with self raising flour and then leave it to rise to see how the texture of the cake varies. Oh the things I do for you….
Chica Andaluza 
This looks wonderful and I’d love to try it….the trouble is I daren’t have a sourdough starter as I’d never need to use it often enough, with an excellent boulangerie just around the corner! I hope you enjoy the olive oil cake!
It’s just come out of the oven (smells wonderful!)…had to bake early as it’s soooo hot now 🙂
PS Just looking at your recipe again and I’m surprised that you don’t leave it to rise, like other doughs.
Yes, the recipe said to bake straight away and it was surprisingly light but I’m going to try it again and leave it a while to rise and see how different it turns out!
The things you have to do for we constant needy readers eh? Force yourself and think of England girl! ;). I just pinned you 🙂
Pinned eh, I wondered what that little tickle I felt was….shouldn’t you be in bed, isn’t it some ridiculous hour in the middle of the night for you?!
I got up at 3am Sunday…I worked hard and fast at reducing my 600 RSS Feed Read Posts whilst giving the author their due (I am a prolific commenter and feel if someone took the time to write a post that I get something out of, I owe them a good response 🙂 ) and pinning the posts that were worth pinning…the problem is that when you pin they show other people who have pinned the same thing and suddenly I was faced with a plethora of amazing pinned boards all luring me to wander off sideways…it took me ALL DAY to knock out my RSS Feed Reader and I felt like I had climbed Mt. Everest by the time I had finished. I even got invited to join a board about body building (I must tell some AMAZING porkie pies by the pins that I pin to have gotten that! 😉 )…I graciously declined ;). I got off the computer at 7pm and feel I deserve a Pinterest award for the most pins in a day as I don’t read crap blogs, they are ALL GOOD and just about every single one of the 600 posts got pinned! My work here is DONE! I got up to 34 posts. I am blissed out 🙂
Oh my word – you were getting up as we were going to bed (sort of!). You have been a very busy lady but it all sounds very productive and FUN!
(It’s still new enough for me to be chuffed at pinning 😉 )
Aha 🙂 You’re still hooked!
“Hooked?…MOI???!” 😉 I prefer to call it an intense predilection…
Nothing wrong with a little intensity 🙂
A girl after my own (intense) heart 😉
I’ve always wanted to grow my own sourdough mother, but I need a bigger kitchen and fridge, not to mention I’d loose the wonderful social aspect of chatting to people in the St. John every week, where I buy my brown sourdough.
I like the flat aspect of your cake, it reminds me of something else Spanish – maybe Tarta de Santiago – which I believe comes from Jewish passover cake.
Please send me a slice 😉
That’s what it reminded me of – Tarta de Santiago, I’ve been trying to place it! I think if I had St. John’s down the road I wouldn’t be doing this…although the starter doesn’t really take up much space (I have a large kilner jar), I think their choices of bread are amazing. In Bexhill there was one baker that on Saturdays sold sourdough (it was very nice but expensive). I think, if I do keep this going (and Bread Man is now not delivering to me at our request, so the pressure’s on) I feel confident enough to bring my sourdough over with us to the UK when we next make the trip. Do you think we’d have to declare it as another passenger on the ferry?!
Bread competition is hotting up in London – I was surprised to see Quo Vadis open a bakery in the restaurant and I was also shocked to see an Italian place on Wardour street selling large loaves for £7!
Of course, Anthony Bourdain states in one of his books, that making your own sourdough bread in house is one of the pillars for a good restaurant.
I’m sure your mother (sourdough that is) will be fine on a road and ferry trip – I wonder if the taste will change?
£7 – outrageous! But hey, it is time consuming to make and if you’re paying to be in Wardour Street, I guess the overheads are high….
I expect the taste of the sourdough would change. Apart from becoming more mature over the last few weeks, it’s behaving and tasting different here as the weather is hotting up. I made two disastrous loaves this week (which tasted amazing but looked like thick tortillas and were so heavy) as it’s suddenly gone from coolish and damp to very hot and dry. Have now worked out I need ot make even wetter loaves and it’s back to being good bread again.
Mmm, olive oil. Looks delicious.
Olive oil makes everything taste great!
Very delicious thing – if I had a sour dough starter ( let’s be honest, Roger – if you even wanted a sour dough starter). I remember the post on Olives and Artichokes which reminded me of a recipe by Patricia Wells – without the sourdough:).
Hee hee – I think if you had a starter (which I know you won’t ever) you’d let it froth and ferment in order to take the most amazing photo of it taking over the kitchen!
Please may I offer my services as a taste tester?
You are really making me want to start a sour dough ‘mother’. the Management would be pleased – he loves sour dough bread – but I worry about using enough of it…
I’m using mine every 2 or 3 days so am constantly feeding it, but I think if you were going to bake with it once a week, you could keep it in the fridge until a day or two before baking and then put if back to “bed” again until the next week!
That looks like it would be perfect with some lovely fresh coffee for elevenses sat looking out at the stunning views you have. Perfect.
Come on over!
Sooooooo tempting!
I think I would love starting my day with a piece of your cake and tea.
A perfect start indeed – moreso if shared!
Well, coming from someone who normally does not bake nor eat anything sweet, I have to admit I love the look of what a further chapter in the sourdough tale has produced, and when I finally get ‘my’ starter going . . . well, recipe bookmarked I was trying to say 🙂 !
I don’t really have a sweet tooth either, but this was a good compromise – not too sugary!
I have been baking with sourdough as well. So glad you shared this recipe and that you are as addicted as I am. I only take out half a cup every week 🙂
I’m just off to check our your zucchini bread recipe!
I’m just getting to my blogging duties,saw the title of your post, and smiled. Yes, you’ve got sourdough fever, all right. I think it wonderful. When I’m ready to start mine up again, I’ve another place to come and scour for recipes. 🙂
A cake loaded with cake sure does sound good, Tanya. Yum!
I don’t think I’ll be doing much more now other than bread, which I’m baking regularly, but we are rather hooked on it! Oh dear….am eating waaaaay too much bread now 😦
I’m glad it wasn’t heavy and I look forward to your next experiment.
More to come soon!
Great and simple recipe for this time of year when being in a Texas kitchen is like torture! Thanks for leading me to Teleri’s site, love the Mediterranean servings there:)
Yes, my kitchen is getting like that…baking will be restricted! Isn’t Teleri’s blog lovely!
That is a good pairing of ingredients! The sour flavour of the dough and the sweetness of cherries!! Lovely!
Thanks Ambrosiana!
Se ve delicioso, Tanya! Voy ahora a ver tus otras recetas con sourdough. 🙂
He visto esta mañana que has estado trabajando anoche con los blogs!
Tanya thank you!
I have cherries I need to use up and anything with sourdough gets extra points in my book now 🙂
Of course, you’re the one that got me started on this!
Looks amazing! Have yet to try sourdough though, to be honest with you 🙂
It takes a bit of commitment, but even if you only do it once in a while, it’s very rewarding! Hope all is good with you Fati 🙂
Using olive oil in cakes is my next experiment! Boy, I just know that the sourdough with cherries has to be a winning combination. Brilliant!
It was a good experiment!
Sourdough cake…?! I never would have thought of using sourdough starter in a cake! Ingenious, and a great way to avoid wasting the stuff you have to take away. It looks really good actually – lovely and airy and studded with those juicy cherries… yum!
I’m learning a lot about sourdough, it seems that you can use it in a load of different things….it’s very exciting!
Good cake,looks amazing !
Thank you 🙂
if the usual making of chocolate cake with the materials ….
but you create something different and it was a very clever idea
so yummy …thanks for the recipe , I’ll to try it