This classic sourdough apple cake combines a moist butter cake with thinly sliced apples and a golden brown streusel topping. You can throw this together and have it baked, on the table in under an hour. That makes this recipe one of my go-to cakes when I need something quick and easy to serve guests that still provides a big apple flavor.
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Why You’ll Love This Recipe
No Fancy Equipment – You can whip this sourdough discard recipe up with a bowl, whisk and round cake pan in under an hour. No stand mixer required!
Use Up Excess Apples – The apples for this cake are thinly sliced using a mandolin, making it the perfect way to use up seconds or slightly bruised apples. You don’t even need to peel them!
If you love all things apples, you might also like to try this sourdough apple pie or these sourdough apple and cinnamon muffins.
Ingredients
- Apples – Literally any type of apples work for this cake, you don’t even need to peel them! Granny smith apples, honeycrisp, pink lady … whatever the kids haven’t eaten this week! Slice them as thinly as possible, a mandolin is perfect here. Room temperature apples work best.
- Butter – Soft, salted butter is perfect here.
- Sugar – You’ll need granulated sugar for the cake and brown sugar for the streusel topping.
- Eggs
- Vanilla Paste – You can use extract, but I find paste gives the loveliest vanilla flavor.
- Sourdough Discard – You can use active sourdough starter if you prefer. I usually have fairly active starter on my counter so do prefer that, but unfed starter works well, as long as it’s not too acidic. Older discard will produce a more pronounced sourdough flavor.
- Milk
- All-purpose Flour
- Baking Powder
- Cinnamon – This is optional, but I love the classic warmth this spice brings to this cake. You could also add some apple pie spice to really amp up the flavor here if you want to.
- Salt
You’ll find detailed measurements and instructions in the recipe card towards the bottom of this post.
How To Make Sourdough Apple Cake
To make this cake as easy as possible, I always suggest slicing the apples and making the streusel topping first. That way, everything is ready to add when you need it.
There’s no need for a mixer here, you just need to whisk together the butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla, before adding your sourdough discard, milk, all purpose flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt on top in the same bowl. Seriously, the less dishes the better in my book!
Once the cake batter is mixed together, you need to toss all of your sliced apples into the bowl and fold them in with the cake batter, ensuring all of the apple slices are well coated.
Pour the cake batter into a round cake pan, ensuring the apple slices are fairly evenly distributed. Top with the streusel crumb, making sure it spreads all the way to the edges. Bake in a moderate oven for around an hour or until the streusel topping is golden and the apple slices are tender.
Kate’s Pro Tip
Low Effort Dessert
This sourdough apple cake is a low effort dessert and the perfect way to end a get together with friends. I love serving it warm topped with vanilla ice cream or sweetened whipped cream and a little drizzle of homemade caramel sauce. It’s also delicious served with the apple cider glaze from these sourdough apple cider cookies!
How To Store + Freeze
This cake can be made ahead up to 24 hours before you want to serve it. Store the cooled cake in an airtight container at room temperature. You can warm it slightly in the oven before serving if you want it warm.
Leftovers can be stored at room temperature for up to 4 days. I don’t recommend freezing this cake. It’s so easy to make when you need it, there’s no real need to. I froze one of my test batches and I found that the texture wasn’t great when it thawed, so definitely make this one as you need it.
Sourdough Apple Cake
Equipment
- Mixing Bowl
- Round Cake Pan (20 x 5 cm or 8 x 2 inches)
Ingredients
- 2 Apples, (medium, around 120 grams each)
Streusel Topping
- 40 g Brown Sugar
- 40 g Butter, (cold, cubed)
- 40 g All Purpose Flour
Cake Batter
- 113 g Butter
- 150 g Granulated Sugar
- 2 Eggs
- 75 g Whole Milk
- 100 g Sourdough Discard
- 5 g Vanilla Paste
- 175 g All Purpose Flour
- 5 g Baking Powder
- 2 g Cinnamon, (1 tsp)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180ºC/350ºF. Place a round of parchment paper into the base of the pan and spray it with cooking spray.
- Finely slice the 2 apples. Set these aside.
- Make the streusel by rubbing the brown sugar, flour and butter together in a small bowl. Set this aside while you make the cake batter.
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the butter, sugar, eggs, sourdough discard and vanilla until light and fluffy.
- Now add the flour, baking powder and cinnamon into the bowl and bring together into a thick cake batter. Add the sliced apples into the bowl and fold into the cake batter using a spatula.
- Tip the cake batter into your prepared cake pan and spread the streusel evenly over the top of the cake ensuring you cover the cake all the way to the edges.
- Bake the cake at 180ºC/350ºF for around 40 to 50 minutes or until the streusel topping is golden brown and the apples are tender and cooked through.
- Remove the cake from the oven and allow to cool in the pan for 30 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Like this? Rate and comment below!
This recipe is phenomenal! I used 200g of fresh, peeled honeycrisp apples and swapped almonds for walnuts. The cake is delightfully light, fluffy and flavourful, though I found it needed a much longer cook time with the extra moisture from the apples. Thanks for sharing this recipe!
This has become a regular treat in our home! Everyone loves this apple cake. I like the fact that I can use my sourdough discard so it doesn’t feel like a waste. I like to use fresh diced apples and it comes out great every time!
Your recipes sound really yummy. Can you add the option to change the measurements to English? Ei. grams to tsp. and/or cups. Thanks in advance and sorry if I missed that option.
Lynette
Can you mix fresh apples through the batter
yes you can.
Can I freeze this cake? I made this cake and it is a real treat for my family. Soooo good and moist! Thank you for the recipe!
This is my absolute favourite and quick dessert to make now.
It’s very similar to Slavic “sharlotka” cake that we make but with the discard it tastes very rustic.
Thank you!
Love this recipe. It cooks beautifully each time and I always receive compliments. Thank you for sharing it!
I love this recipe. I have substituted canned peaches for the canned apples and added blueberries and use chopped walnuts instead of almonds. I also omit the sugar on top and cut the sugar in the recipe basically in 1/2 -3/4. I do this with all recipes as I don’t like really sweet and look for low glycemic, one of the reasons, I like sourdough bread. This is one of my favorite recipes and I share this with friends and family. My granddaughter was here a couple of weeks ago, and can be a bit of a picky eater (she’s 7) and she kept on eating it. In fact, I made another as she polished off the dish. I have made thumb prints with discard and she rolled them and put jam in the thumb prints. She also helped me make a carrot cake for her Mom’s and Granddad’s birthday with sourdough discard. It was delicious.
Thank you Pantry Mama for the amazing recipes. Yours is one of my go-to sites
Annette
I just made this cake today with canned apples that I harvested and canned last fall, and it is absolutely delicious! I will definitely be making it again and again! So much flavor and the texture is awesome.
hi kate, i made this recipe on september 9th, the original version with the apples and almonds on top. i’ve been scouring your blog trying to find this recipe i made only to realise you updated it yesterday and this was the recipe i had originally used. any chance you could share that original version? it was one of my family favourites and they begged me to make it again today and i couldn’t. thanks in advance.
Hi Holly – oh gosh I’m so sorry! I promise this one is way better though! I don’t have the original on hand, I’ll see if I can dig it out for you though 🙂