Sourdough Honey Orange Kamut Cake
I’ve been baking lots of cookies and bread lately, so I made a huge batch of sourdough starter. Then all of a sudden, I went traveling at the last minute to visit friends and attend a destination wedding. I slowly forgot about my sourdough starter, or discard at this point. It started to accumulate dark murky hooch. It’s hungry.
I decided to turn the sourdough discard into a cake. Thus, for today’s recipe, we’ll make sourdough honey orange kamut cake. As the name suggests, I used kamut flour, which adds a nutty flavor to the cake. If you’ve been following my account for a while, I occasionally bake with ancient grains, especially kamut and einkorn. I have huge bags of them in my cabinet. Ancient grains often contain less gluten than modern wheat, which can make them more digestible. I also think that they taste richer and more delicious.
This recipe yields quite a lot of cake. I used two loaf pans, but you can also use a sheet pan if you like. You just need to adjust the baking time accordingly. I usually go for 45 minutes first, then add some extra minutes if the center is still liquid.
Since honey is the main flavor of this cake, you want to use good quality honey. I recommend using dark-colored honey because it tends to have a more full-bodied, caramel-y flavor compared to light-colored honey like acacia. I usually use pine honey, but you can also try using buckwheat, chestnut, or even avocado honey. To complement the flavor of the honey, I also use dark brown sugar. I know it sounds so sweet, using both honey and dark brown sugar, but trust me, you’ll need them both to enhance each other’s flavors.
Honey cake is notorious for being a bit dry sometimes. But that’s not the case with this cake. The key is using oil as the sole fat in the cake. I use olive oil, but you can use other vegetable oil. So yes, this cake doesn’t contain butter at all. The thing about butter is that it consists of fat and water, while oil is just pure fat. Pure fat like oil helps to create a more even crumb and maintains moisture better than butter, resulting in a cake that stays moist and tender for a longer period. I’m normally a fan of buttery cake, but I have a special spot in my heart for a moist honey cake. Also, in my opinion, since we want honey and spice to be the main superstars of our cake show, the neutral flavor of oil won’t compete with our superstars.
I recommend using dark-colored honey because it tends to have a more full-bodied, caramel-y flavor compared to light-colored honey.
For the final touch of the honey cake, I made orange honey syrup from honey and orange juice. As the syrup is soaked by the cake, it adds moisture and an extra hint of citrus flavor to the cake. This step is optional though, so you can skip it if you want.
I hope you all enjoy today’s recipe. I’ll see you in the next newsletter!
Serves 12-16
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 1 hour
Level of difficulty: 1/3
Keep for 5 days at room temperature in an airtight container
Ingredients:
360g/ 3 cups Kamut flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tbs ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground nutmeg
¼ tsp ground clove
½ tsp salt
250g/ 1 cup sourdough discard
220g/ 1 cup olive oil
293g/ 1½ cups dark brown sugar
420g/ 1¼ cups pine honey or other dark-colored honey (e.g. buckwheat, chestnut, avocado)
3 eggs
1½ tsp vanilla extract
240g/ 1 cup strongly brewed black tea
60g/ ¼ cup orange juice
Zest from 2 oranges
Orange honey syrup (optional):
60g/ ¼ cup orange juice
3 tbs honey
Steps:
Preheat the oven to 175°C/ 350°F. Grease two loaf pans (15x28 cm/ 6x11 inches) and line them with parchment paper.
Add flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, and salt in a bowl. Whisk to combine.
Whisk together sourdough discard, oil, sugar, honey, eggs, vanilla extract, tea, orange juice, and orange zest in a big bowl.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Whisk slowly to combine. Don’t overmix the batter. It’s ok if there are still some flour pockets. Let the batter sit at room temperature for 20 minutes. It will look very bubbly as the sourdough is getting active.
Pour the batter into the two loaf pans. Bake them for 50-60 minutes until a skewer comes clean when inserted in the center of the cake. If the cake center is still liquid while the top is browning already, you can cover the top with aluminum foil.
While the cakes are baking, make the orange honey syrup. Add orange juice and honey to a bowl. Whisk to combine and set it aside. Pour the syrup on top of each cake while they’re still warm and let them soak the syrup for a few minutes. Let the cakes cool down for about 30 minutes. Enjoy!