Apple Crumb Cake with Sour Cream & Sourdough Discard

We were headed to a potluck with one of The Hubs' Homebrew Groups, and I needed something to use this week's sourdough discard in. We also had a container of sour cream that needed to get used up, and some of last year's apples from our backyard tree hanging out in the freezer.  When I searched the interwebz for a "sourdough sour cream apple cake"...I got a lot of "sourdough apple cakes" and "sour cream apple cakes"...but no crossover.  So--I found a couple different recipes I liked, mixed & matched, and this was the end result.

Note: This results in some of the measurements below being in grams, and some in dry measurements--this is because the sourdough substitution is based on weight, rather than volume--I removed 75g of flour and 75g of sour cream from the cake layer to make up for the addition of the 150g of sourdough discard.

INGREDIENTS:

Apple Layer:

• 3 cups frozen or fresh sliced apples, peeled (sliced thin or cubed)
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1 Tbsp butter
• 1.5 Tbsp lemon juice
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg

Cake Layer:

• 1.5 sticks unsalted butter, room temp
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 170g sour cream (about 2/3 cup)
• 3 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 150g sourdough discard
• 240g all-purpose flour (should be a little shy of 2 cups)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt

Crumb Topping:

• 1 stick unsalted butter, melted
• 3/4 cup flour
• 1/2 cup quick oats
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup white sugar 
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup pecans, crushed

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat the oven to 350F.
2. In a medium saucepan, combine the APPLE LAYER ingredients and bring to a boil.  Lower the heat and let simmer until apples are very soft, around 20 minutes.  Remove from heat--it will continue to thicken as it cools.
3. In a separate medium bowl, melt the butter for the CRUMB TOPPING, then add the remaining ingredients and mix with a fork until crumbly.  Set aside.
4. Using a large bowl and hand mixer, or a stand mixer, combine the room temp butter and sugar and beat until fluffy. Then add the eggs, sour cream, vanilla, and sourdough discard and mix until smooth.
5. Remove the bowl from the stand mixer and weigh the flour into the bowl, then add the salt, baking powder and baking soda. Place back on the mixer and blend until combined.
6. Pour CAKE LAYER into a buttered 9x13 pan and smooth out.  Then add the APPLE LAYER onto the cake batter, and use a butter knife to swirl the mixture evenly into the CAKE LAYER.
7. Add the CRUMB TOPPING layer evenly across the top of the pan, and bake for 40-45 minutes.

Cake Layer.

Apple Layer added & swirled in.

Crumb Topping added.

This works well as a dessert, or as a coffee cake for breakfast!

Sourdough Stories Chapter 9: White Sandwich Bread

So, Mandough has been growing so rapidly that I actually ended up making THREE things last week to whittle my starter down a bit. The first was the egg noodles, which I'm pretty happy with.

Then, we were out of bread so The Hubs asked if I could make a loaf for us to use for sandwiches & such this week.  I was happy to try my hand at making some basic white bread.  The Clever Carrot's recipes have served me well so far, and I liked that she offered options for varying the amount of starter & water if you're using discard to try & get it to rise better. (I went with the 150g starter + 250g water option, because, again, I was trying to use up starter.)

FYI: You may notice some variability with the lighting in these photos. I pulled out my old ring light for my SLR camera and was trying to use it with my phone.

Her recipe calls for 100% AP flour, but I used half AP + half bread flour...and accidentally added a little too much water. But since bread flours sometimes soak up extra water, I said a little prayer and hoped it would turn out just fine.

I was surprised at how soft and pliable the dough was after letting it go for 6-8 minutes on the Kitchenaid, and hoped & prayed I hadn't overmixed it or added too much water or screwed it up in some other way.  I'm used to having a big dense dough ball, but this almost seemed like stretchy loose pizza dough. It flattened out in the bottom of the bowl I was using for the bulk rise.  The recipe noted if it was sticky to just dust it with a bit more flour, so I did.

About 8pm (Saturday night) I checked on it--it had grown and was bubbly but still pretty flat, and a touch sticky.  I dusted the top of the dough and my cutting board with flour, then dropped it upside down on the cutting board, and dusted the bottom with flour as well.  Lightly tamped it with my fingers to get air pockets out, and then began trying to roll it up as described in the original recipe.  Which was a challenge, because this dough was REALLY pliable. Like, almost ooze-y.  But with some patience (and a little extra flour), finally got it rolled up, and then carefully plopped it into the loaf pan.

Like a bread slug...

At that point, because I had opted to let it rise during the day instead of overnight, I put plastic wrap over the top and put it in the fridge for a slow overnight proof, so that we could finish baking it the following day. After church, I pulled it out of the fridge and let it sit in a sunny spot for a couple hours until it had risen to level with the top of the baking dish.  Then we heated up the oven and let 'er bake.

I think it's another really pretty loaf; not as soft as commercial sandwich bread but still a nice neutral flavor and it sliced easy enough.  We made plenty of cinnamon toast and grilled cheese with it (along with yes, a few actual sandwiches).  

Soursough Stories, Chapter 7: Chocolate Chip Scones

After a lot of savory recipes, I wanted to make something sweet this week.  We landed on chocolate chip scones, because...they're delicious, and I'd never made a "good" scone before. I've tried a few times, but they were usually dense & dry or too cakey.  But apparently, sourdough starter is the secret to success. Or...perhaps weighing the ingredients. Whatever, doesn't matter. Point is, these were EXCELLENT.

So, last week with the drop biscuits, I was too tired/lazy to grate butter...and didn't have butter. However, now that butter AND egg prices have come back down into a reasonable range, I had BOTH!!!  I put a stick of butter in the ice tray of our freezer while I mixed the dry ingredients with a food processor, and mixed the starter, egg, sugar & vanilla in the Kitchenaid with a wire whisk attachment.

NOTE: I think the food processor is the true key for success here.  This is a tip I got from a cookbook--I have zero recollection which one.  Overworking scone dough will lead to the issues I've had previously.  But a food processor allows for quick mixing while minimizing time spent handling the ingredients.  My previous attempts have all been hand-kneaded or in the stand mixer.  The original recipe calls for hand-kneading...but let's be honest. If I'm taking the time to hand-grate frozen butter, I'm gonna cut corners somewhere else. Time is money.

The original recipe said I should aim for "pea sized clumps" of flour/butter mixture.  I got closer to coarse sand because of the food processor, but it's all good.  I slowly poured the wet ingredients into the flour/butter mix and pulsed the mixer until well combined & pulling away from the sides of the bowl--this took less than 30 seconds of pulses, so not a long time.  

Then I added 1 cup of mini chocolate chips & about half a cup (one large handful) of organic unsweetened coconut flakes (not because I care about such things, but because the last time I needed coconut was during the Great Coconut Shortage of 2022 and that was the only kind available. Sidenote: as someone whose preferred coffee add-in is Coconut Creme Coffee-Mate, those were dark times), pulsed a couple more times, and then turned it out onto a floured cutting board flattened it into about a 9 inch round, then cut into 8 triangles.  

I placed the triangles on a baking sheet then let them chill in the fridge for about 45 minutes while the oven was pre-heating, and while I went about doing other things, like post-vaycay laundry & meal planning. Very exciting stuff.

The original recipe also called for topping these with heavy cream (don't have) and sanding sugar (also don't have), so we went with 1% milk and Sugar in the Raw.  I used less than a packet on the whole batch--I mean--look at those things. They're already completely full of chocolate chips. Extra sugar on top is really just for looks.

In other news--I need to start making recipes that call for more than just 1/2 cup of sourdough discard.  Mandough is growing at an untenable rate; I threw some discard in the trash this week and STILL had too much after feeding to fit my jar.  So he's got a little clone buddy (we'll call him "Rex") in a separate jar in the fridge with him now.  Next week's recipe will be something that uses more starter.

Adventures in Sourdough: Episode Two

 The thing about having a new hobby that you theoretically can't kill....you play around with it.  Mandough (my starter) was hanging out in the fridge, and not really growing. So I pulled it out on the counter to hang out at room temp for a day.  And he got really active and bubbly....so I put him back in the fridge. Whence he promptly shrunk back down and all the bubbles disappeared.  PROBABLY because I didn't feed it while it was hanging out on the counter for the day.  

So when I decided to feed/make bread this past Saturday, he was looking REAL sad and deflated.  And hadn't grown much...I only had about 200g of starter to work with.  So I pulled 70g out for bread, and fed the rest with a 1:1 water-flour ratio and let him hang on the countertop for 5 hours.  Then he was nice & happy.

I used the same basic sourdough recipe for the discard this week, but halved the portions since I was only working with half as much starter:

Ingredients:

70g starter

120g water

12g olive oil

250g AP flour

5g salt

It's warmer this weekend, outside temps of 50-60's F--much better for rising.  Which is good, since I started working on this a little before lunch time on Saturday.  Last week it was only 67F inside the house, so I did an overnight bulk rise for 12 hours.  If I followed the same timeline this week, I'd be making bread at midnight.  So I sat the bowl in a sunny spot on the counter near a window.  

Around 8pm, I kneaded a bit and folded it into a ball, then transferred it into the fridge to proof overnight (rather than staying up late to bake).  I read a few recipes that noted some time in the fridge would help flavors develop, and my 4.5 years at Papa John's remembers the trays and trays of pizza dough proofing in the walk in cooler. 

After church I pulled it out of the fridge to get to room temp, and started heating the oven to 450F.  And remembered to score it right before putting it in the oven this time!

Pale loaf after removing the lid.

Made a cute little boule, sorta dainty given that it was just a half-batch.  

Flavor-wise I think this one was about the same as last week, but maybe I haven't developed a refined enough palette to compare after only 2 loaves. I will say this one sliced much more easily than the last one.  We were able to slice it fairly thin and it made some great breakfast toast. I wanted to make some grilled cheese with it but was out of town for work most of the week.

Bonus recipe: Pumpkin Cranberry Scones

Scones will forever & always remind me of the year I lived in New Orleans, thanks to Maurice’s bakery.

Let’s travel back in time, shall we?  To 2004: I was a post-grad student at University of New Orleans, working part time as a grad assistant on campus, and part-time as a gourmet foods associate (read: cheese monger) at Martin’s Wine Cellar in Metairie. Jean-Luc, the owner of Maurice’s, was a regular at our store, and like any true Frenchman, he favored the ooey, gooey, nasty, sweaty-foot-stanky French cheeses we carried.  You name it: Camembert, Munster, Pont l’Eveque, Vacherin… if it got gooier & stinkier with age, Jean-Luc loved it.  I’ll never understand that, especially since there are so many delicious non-stanky french cheeses (like the beautiful Brin d’Amour, a slightly tangy sheep’s milk cheese that’s coated in dried rosemary & other herbs… but I’m getting off-topic…)  Anyway, despite his taste in cheese, he was a really wonderful person & always pleasant to talk to.

One of my coworkers, Ozzy, also worked for Jean-Luc at his bakery, so occasionally on Sunday mornings, she’d bring in a few pastries with her to the morning shift at Martin’s, which I always worked.  Maurice’s scones are now, and will always be, the epitome of scone perfection (particularly the cranberry-orange).

Well, I had some dried cranberries and roasted pumpkin laying around, so I figured: why not make some scones?  Found a base recipe, and with a few modifications, we have this:

Ingredients:

3 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup golden brown sugar, packed

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice

1/2 cup light butter, chilled

1/2 cup dried cranberries

1 egg

1/3 cup milk

1/4 cup orange juice

1/2 cup canned or roasted pumpkin

1 egg white

sugar (coarse if you have it)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Farenheit.

In a mixing bowl, combined the first 6 ingredients & mix.  Cut in butter with a pastry cutter (or I just used my Kitchenaid) until the dough looks like coarse crumbs. 

Add cranberries, egg, pumpkin, milk, juice to the dry ingredients and mix until moistened. 

Knead on lightly floured breadboard until nearly smooth (several seconds).  If it gets too sticky, add extra flour as you knead.  Roll dough into a 12x9 inch rectangle. Using a pizza cutter, cut dough into 4x3 inch rectangles; cut each rectangle in half to form triangles.

Place on ungreased cookie sheet. In a small bowl, mix egg white with a a little water & beat well.  Brush over the scones with a pastry brush and then sprinkle sugar over the top.

Bake for about 12 minutes. Remove from pan and cool on rack for 5 minutes. Serve warm with butter (we had a few with apple butter or pumpkin butter which was also quite nice.)

Nutrifacts:

Calories 217.1

Cholesterol 59.2 mg

Sodium 280.0 mg

Total Carbohydrate 26.9 g

Dietary Fiber 1.2 g

Sugars 5.5 g

Protein 3.7 g