The best kind of spring cleaning is when you take a jar of sourdough discard out of the fridge and use it to make a really delicious carrot cake. The particularly motivated among you can rinse out the jar afterwards and add fresh sourdough, for example for crispy carrot buns. Everyone else simply enjoy a big slice of carrot cake and recover from the long cold winter.

This carrot cake is a great way to use up old starter. You can bake the dough either in a loaf tin, as a traybake or as muffins. The carrot cake is topped with a fresh frosting made from cream cheese, icing sugar and lemon juice. Because the recipe contains baking powder as well as starter, it is quick and easy to make (unlike other sourdough recipes). It is not necessary to leave the dough to rest or rise. The dicard ensures that the carrot cake is still moist and fresh even after a few days in the fridge.

Cream cheese frosting without butter but with lemon

Cream cheese frosting is one of my favourite toppings for cakes, muffins etc. It is creamy, tastes lighter and fresher than buttercream and is less sweet than icing. For this basic recipe, I simply sweetened a packet of double cream cheese with a little icing sugar and mixed it with orange or lemon juice until creamy. For more stability, you can also stir a packet of cream stabiliser into the frosting. This is particularly useful if you want to turn the recipe into carrot cupcakes and want the topping on the muffins to keep their shape for longer. This is usually not necessary for a flat layer of frosting on a traybake or loaf cake.

Carrot cake from the tray

I baked the recipe in a loaf tin. If you want to bake a larger batch of carrot cake for your Easter brunch, you can also convert the recipe into a tray bake. To do this, simply spread the dough onto a deep baking tray, which you line with butter and flour or semolina beforehand. The baking time is reduced by around 30 minutes due to the lower height of the cake. You can use the stick test to check whether your Easter cake is baked through. After baking, you can spread the carrot cake with your frosting and decorate as desired.

What you need for carrot cake with sourdough

• Baking powder: If you want to use less leavening agent, you can replace the baking powder with half the amount of baking soda. Unlike baking powder, baking soda requires an acid to react. This can be apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, buttermilk, yoghurt or even sourdough.
• Flour: I used cake flour (or type 405) for this carrot cake. You can also replace some of the flour with wholemeal flour or spelt flour. Wholegrain flour can absorb more water than white flour, so you may need to add more liquid to the dough.
• Carrots, grated.
• Butter, melted .
• Sugar: Brown sugar gives the dough a caramel flavour. Icing sugar makes for a fluffy, light frosting.
• Egg
• Sourdough discard or sourdough starter: Because this recipe contains an additional leavening agent, it is not important how fit your sourdough starter is. It works just as well with freshly fed sourdough as with starter that has been waiting in the fridge for a week. I feed my sourdough starter with roughly equal parts flour and water. I use a mixture of wheat and rye flour. If you feed your sourdough in a different ratio, you will probably need to adjust the proportion of water in this recipe.
• Nuts, e.g. almonds, hazelnuts or walnuts, ground.
• Cinnamon and salt for flavour.
• Cream cheese: double cream for an extra creamy frosting.
• Orange or lemon juice

In three steps: How to make the carrot cake

1. Finely grate the carrots. Mix all the ingredients to form a dough.
2. Pour the batter into a tin and bake the carrot cake for one hour at 180 degrees.
3. Mix the frosting from cream cheese, icing sugar and lemon juice and decorate the carrot cake.

Helpful tools – My recommendations

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• A Danish Whisk* – especially if you don’t use a kitchen machine. This allows you to mix your ingredients without the whole dough sticking to the spoon.
• A kitchen scale*.
• The round enamel cake tin* is scratch-resistant, durable and ideal for cakes and tarts.
• A stainless steel loaf tin*.
• A cooling rack* for bread, rolls and waffles.
• A sharp bread knife*.

You can find more product recommendations here.

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Recipe: Easy Sourdough Discard Carrot Cake

This carrot cake is a great way to use up old starter. You can bake the dough either in a loaf tin, as a traybake or as muffins. The carrot cake is topped with a fresh frosting made from cream cheese, icing sugar and lemon juice. As the recipe contains baking powder as well as starter, it is quick and easy to make. The dicard ensures that the carrot cake is still moist and fresh even after a few days in the fridge.

Print Recipe Rezept merken

Prep Time 20 minutes mins

Cook Time 1 hour hr

Total Time 1 hour hr 20 minutes mins

Course Carrot Cake, Carrot cake

Cuisine German, swiss

Servings 10 slices

Ingredients

  

dough

• 350 g Carrots grated
• 125 g butter melted
• 150 g brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 150 g sourdough discard or sourdough starter
• 200 g cake flour
• 100 g ground nuts e.g. almonds, hazelnuts or walnuts
• 1 package of baking powder
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 pinch of salt

Cream Cheese Frosting

• 200 g cream cheese full fat
• 3 tsp. icing sugar or to taste
• orange or lemon juice

Instructions

 

• Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
• Finely grate the carrots.
• Mix the grated carrots with the egg, melted butter, old choux pastry, sugar and cinnamon.
• Mix the flour, ground nuts, baking powder and salt and mix with the liquid ingredients.
• Grease a loaf tin well and dust with flour or semolina.
• Pour the batter into the loaf tin and bake for about an hour. Use a stick to check whether the cake is baked through.
• Leave the finished carrot cake to cool for at least 30 minutes and then carefully remove from the tin.
• To make the frosting, sweeten the cream cheese with icing sugar to taste and mix with orange or lemon juice until creamy.
• Spread the frosting on the carrot cake and decorate as desired, for example with caramelised nuts and marzipan carrots.

Notes

Baking powder: If you want to use less leavening agent, you can replace the baking powder with half the amount of baking soda. Unlike baking powder, baking soda requires an acid to react. This can be apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, buttermilk, yoghurt or even sourdough.

Flour: I used cake flour (or type 405) for this carrot cake. You can also replace some of the flour with wholemeal flour or spelt flour. Wholegrain flour can absorb more water than white flour, so you may need to add more liquid to the dough.

Keyword discard recipe, leftovers, sourdough cake, with sourdough, with sourdough

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