Sourdough Chocolate Cake

Yep, you read that title right, I made Sourdough Chocolate Cake. And it is yummy! A slightly different texture from what you might be used to, but yummy! (And worth trying if you have a sourdough starter.)
I didn't come up with this recipe on my own, but I did tweak it some. It came from an old cookbook that belonged to my mother.

There's no YouTube video for this recipe, but I'll list the step by step instructions here.

First of all, you must have an active starter. I've had mine for over a year. The recipe for my starter is in a previous blog from August '15 called, "Oh the Smell of Fresh Baked Bread!"

Here's a picture of my active starter

Mix 1/2 cup sourdough starter with 1/4 cup non-fat dry milk, 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour, and 1 cup of very warm water. Mix well and let this stand, in a warm place, for about two hours.

This is what is looked like when I mixed it up

And this is how it looked after two hours

Next, in a separate bowl, cream 1/2 cup of shortening and 1 cup of sugar. Add 1 tsp vanilla (I used my homemade vanilla made from soaking vanilla beans in vodka for several months), 1/2 tsp of salt, and 1 1/2 tsp of baking soda. Next, beat in two eggs, one at a time.

Add 3 squares of melted semi-sweet chocolate and stir this creamed mixture into the sourdough mixture. Gently blend.

Pour into a rectangular pan, 7x11 (odd size, I know, luckily I had one this size) and bake at 350 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes.

I used the old toothpick in the center trick to test for doneness. Next, I let the cake cool completely before frosting it. You can make your favorite frosting recipe or use this one, which was also from the sourdough cookbook, and which I found to be not quite sweet and creamy enough for my taste.

Cream together 2 1/2 cups sifted confectioner's sugar, 2 T butter, 1/4 tsp salt and 3 T milk. Blend in 2/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, melted and slightly cooled, and 1/2 tsp vanilla. 

I added a little more milk than it said. The recipe also stated you could use water or coffee in place of the milk. Coffee would be interesting....

Here's the finished cake, which, by the way, was for my wonderful husband's 47th birthday.