36-hour sourdough chocolate cake
I omitted the yeast, added 100g of sourdough starter, reduced the milk by 50g, reduced the flour by 50g, and increased the milk powder by 5g. I used vanilla extract instead of paste, and I only used 1 1/2 tsps intead of the 40g because that is what my favourite baking-soda-raised chocolate cake calls for and I couldn't bear to dump a whole ~$10 bottle of vanilla into a single cake that was not likely to even turn out.
I just dumped all the ingredients together and mixed them with an electric hand mixer. I let the initial mixture sit overnight at room temperature instead of the 4 hours called for in the recipe. Then after mixing it up I did not wait an entire 18 hours, but I did put the batter in my dehydrator at 95F and it still took about 12 hours to double in volume and get very bubbly. Once in the pan, I let the mixture sit at room temperature for a few hours, but after no rise at all, I put it in my cold room overnight. The next day there was still no rise, so I left it out for another few hours and put it in the oven as soon as I saw a bit of rise.
The taste is okay. Actually, it's pretty good, but it is different. The texture is a bit dense and maybe even a bit dry, but it is a lot more delicate and airy than I was expecting it to be.
The recipe looks like it was originally a pound cake, and I think pound cakes traditionally don't actually include any rising agents except the eggs, so I'm not sure if you really even need to use yeast in such a recipe. I've never made a cake only risen with eggs before, though, so I don't know what it would be like or how it would differ from this.
Here's some photos, but I am very sorry about the crappy cellphone.
After rising all day at 95F the batter did not at all look bubbly like the photo in the recipe:
However, it had doubled in volume:
And, after stirring, the fermentation was much more obvious:
Into the pan. There was a LOT of batter:
Finally it rose some:
A miracle! It rose while baking:
It was tasty enough, but I probably won't make it again. I don't think it's actually as crumbly as this photo shows. Or at least, it wouldn't be if I had been more careful removing it from the pan. I had assumed it would be a sturdy lump, so I just dumped it out, but it was actually fairly delicate and cracked some which made it more crumbly after cooling.
Comments
I do love a chocolate cake. Yours looks delicious. Something tells me that although there are yeast cakes when converting to sourdough the increased amount of time will mean more gluten development. So either a really weak flour is needed, less time or some non gluten flour. I've tried a chickpea flour chocolate cake and it works very well. Make that a chickpea sourdough chocolate cake and time won't be an issue. An idea which i'm sure you'll do justice with.
So the gluten issue is something I have been thinking about.
I love chickpea flour myself, but it definitely has its own flavour. I made some chocolate chip chickpea flour cookies recently, and my husband knew immediately that I'd tried to "hide" something healthy in them. Their structure was really great, though.
I'm wondering if using rye flour for sourdough cakes would work well, since not only is it low in gluten, but it tends to ferment faster than wheat. I've also thought about reserving some flour to add into the batter right before baking.
With this particular recipe, I think even the long rise time from the original yeast recipe might overdevelop the gluten, and that might be intentional to stop the gluten from affecting the final product. The texture of the cake I made is not bread-like at all, and it's also not hard with tunnels as if you'd overmixed a regular cake. It does have a bit of trouble holding itself together, though. I don't really know what I'm looking for, which makes it hard to know if I've found it or not.
Would be different to a chocolate cake. Instead of chickpea flour cookies with chocolate chips the entire cake is chocolatey and hides the distinctive chickpea flavour. I think it's worth a try.
Cakes have eggs in them which binds the flour so you can get a nice cake from any non gluten flour. You can also try something like buckwheat flour or you can use weak wheat flour and replace some of it with a non gluten flour. Almond flour will work nicely too.
If your cake has trouble holding itself together then perhaps try adding more egg whites and/or a some starch like potato starch. I think you should build on this.
I like this idea.I just accidentally made too much starter. Mixing in rye sounds like a good idea. I've seen rye paired with chocolate a few times. As for a cake risen with eggs, you have to whip the egg whites and fold them in gently so you don't deflate them. I'm not terribly gentle so I prefer the all-in-one mix style. Maybe a sourdough-rye-rum cake? I can never just stick with one change, but at least I've done the chocolate-rum combo before. I'll try it this weekend with my regular chocolate cake recipe.
I recently turned a whole bottle of vodka into vanilla extract with a couple jars and a small package of vanilla beans. Some up front cost, but then you've got all the vanilla you want for a few years at no further cost.