Sourdough Apple Cake

This Sourdough Apple Cake is fragrant, moist, and densely packed with apples, pecans, and raisins. It’s easy to make. And it is a great illustration of the Ugly Duckling Bakery motto that my recipes taste delicious but look homemade. Because it is very very ugly.

So read on to learn all the tips and tricks for this sourdough discard apple cake recipe and about using sourdough discard in baking. But don’t despair if you don’t have any sourdough discard! Just grab your cake pan, hit that Jump to Recipe button, and let’s make an apple cake!

Best apples for this apple cake

For this sourdough apple cake, use any apple that remains firm when cooked and has a strong apple flavor. You could use a tart apple (e.g. Granny Smith, Pink Lady) or any sweet apple, as long as it stays chunky.

Or check out other sweet and savory apple recipes like this apple blackberry pie or strawberry apple pie, my simple unsweetened strawberry applesauce. Or go savory with chicken and apple meatballs or apple pie baked beans.

About sourdough discard

Sourdough discard is the extra starter you have after you’ve fed your sourdough starter. Instead of throwing it away, you can use discarded starter in other recipes. Discard makes recipes slightly tangy.

You can obviously use sourdough discard in breads using commercial yeast like this sourdough discard bread or my purple sweet potato sourdough. The discard gives flavor but you need the commercial yeast to make the bread rise. You can also use sourdough discard in pancakes, sourdough discard waffles, sourdough discard pretzels, sourdough buttermilk biscuits, and muffins like these sourdough apple muffins.

Variations and substitutions

• Use 100% all purpose flour. Cake flour is just a lower protein flour and therefore forms less gluten.
• If you don’t have buttermilk, you can use an equal amount of yogurt. Or make homemade buttermilk with the same amount of milk plus a teaspoon of lemon juice.
• Sub in a different nut. The obvious choice would be walnuts, but almonds or hazelnuts would be lovely.
• Sub in a different dried fruit. There’s nothing special about raisins. You could use golden raisins or cranberries or chopped prunes or figs. Whatever you like.
• The cake is great on its own, but feel free to dust it with powdered sugar, or frost it with a cream cheese buttercream frosting.

Recipe tips and tricks

This sourdough apple cake recipe was inspired by a combination of the Apple Snacking Cake from the Flour Bakery Cookbook and my sourdough discard apple muffins.

Step by step

The cake is packed with apples, nuts, and raisins. The hardest part about this recipe is chopping those apples.

Then the recipe follows the typical “creaming method” often used in cakes. You cream the butter and sugar together until they are really light and fluffy.

Then beat in the eggs, one by one, for a minute after each addition.

Beat in the buttermilk and sourdough discard, then add the sifted dry ingredients. Try to avoid over-beating the batter once you add the dry ingredients, because you don’t need to develop the gluten.

Stir the apples, pecans, and raisins in by hand. The batter will be very thick and stiff, but I promise it’s supposed to be that way!

Spoon the apple cake batter into the prepared pan. You should have about a centimeter of space below the top of the pan. Don’t fill it to the top edge of your pan or your cake will overflow when it rises.

Recipe FAQs

Related cake recipes

Check out the Ugly Duckling Bakery archives for cake, cake, and more cake recipes, like:

I originally posted this sourdough apple cake after baking a Swedish apple cake from Dorie Greenspan for the 2021 Reddit 52 week baking challenge: week 22 – Scandinavian. The Swedish apple cake was beautiful, but it wasn’t the apple cake I wanted to eat.