Sourdough rye chocolate cake

My new chocolate cake recipe is from my new favorite baking
book, 100% °F
Rye by Shannon Stonger.

I believe there are actually health benefits to cooking with
sourdough and whole grain flour and maybe even rye versus
wheat. But the reason I’ve adopted it over my previous bread
machine sprouted wheat chocolate cake is that it’s so moist.

The picture is of the version I baked for the twentieth
anniversary of the West
Gallery Quire. People said it was good, and most of it disappeared.

Recipe

INGREDIENTS

• 2 cups rye flour
• ½ cup starter
• 1 cup milk (I used almond milk)
• 1 cup honey, softened to a pourable consistency
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup melted butter or coconut oil (I have coconut oil
  somewhere, but I can’t find it, so I used almond oil, which I
  keep on hand for oiling musical instruments.)
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2/3 cup cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ¾ teaspoon salt

DIRECTIONS

Whisk together the flour, starter, milk, and honey in a medium bowl until just combined. Cover tightly and set aside to ferment for 6-12 hours, or longer if desired.

Preheat the oven to 350°F and prepare a 9×13” pan (I
have one somewhere, but I can only find a 10×14″ pan, so it bakes
a little faster) by buttering and flouring it. Add the eggs,
melted butter, and vanilla to the fermented dough and just begin
to stir it together. Sprinkle over the cocoa, baking powder,
baking soda, and salt and finish mixing until all ingredients are
homogenous.

Scrape batter into prepared pan and place pan into the preheated
oven. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until a cake tester inserted
into the center of the cake comes out clean. (I use an
instant-read thermometer, and it’s done when the probe comes out
clean, but just to check I make sure it’s in the 190-200°F
range.)

Allow to cool before slicing and serving.

Variations

I’ve only baked it twice. The first time I baked it plain, and
I loved the texture but thought the flavor was a little boring.
For the pictured version, I made a chocolate ganache frosting, and
used almond slivers and dried apricot pieces for decoration. Next
time I’ll try doing what I did with the bread machine cake, which
was add chocolate chips and dried cherries.