Sourdough Blueberry Crumb Cake – a Great Use for Sourdough Discard

This sourdough blueberry crumb cake is one of our favorite ways to use up sourdough discard – big hit for brunch or a sweet treat!

Other Great Uses for Sourdough Discard

If you’ve jumped on the sourdough bandwagon, you need sourdough discard recipes. We find lots of ways to use our discard, including:

• Sourdough Dinner Rolls
• Sourdough Stuffing with Roasted Red Onion with Kale & Sausage
• Sourdough Pizza
• Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls
• Sourdough Chocolate Cake with Berries & Whipped Cream

This recipe for blueberry crumb cake made with sourdough discard is also one of our favorite ways to use up the precious discard. I adapted this crumb cake recipe from one on King Arthur Baking.

It’s pretty easy to make and is perfect when you need a sweet addition to breakfast, or something delicious to take to a gathering.

What if I don’t have sourdough discard?

If you’d like to make this recipe, but you don’t have a sourdough starter, I highly recommend getting one! There are a few ways to get a sourdough starter:

1. You can start your own by following King Arthur’s tutorial.
2. You can ask a friend to share their starter with you. If you’re local, let me know! If you aren’t local – let me know that too. I might be able to help out.
3. You can buy a sourdough starter kit.

Ingredients for sourdough crumb cake

• 8 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks or 113g) unsalted butter, at room temperature, at least 65°F
• 1 cup (198g) granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup (227g) sourdough starter, unfed/discard
• 2 cups (241g) unbleached all-purpose Flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup (57g) milk, at room temperature

Crumb Topping Ingredients

• 2 cups (241g) unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 cup (198g) granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 12 tablespoons (2 sticks or 170g) unsalted butter, melted
• 2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries. A triple berry mix of blueberries is also delicious. We like to use the frozen berry bag available at Costco.

How to Make this Sweet Treat

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a 9″ square pan. I’ve also made this in an 11″ pie plate. My husband prefers the cake to berry to topping ratio in the slightly larger pan, but it’s round. You might also want to try the 11″ pie plate.

Pro tip: I like to use butter wrappers for greasing. I store them in my fridge and pull them out as needed.

To make the batter: 

Beat the butter and sugar until well combined in a large mixing bowl. Add the eggs, vanilla, and starter and mix until smooth. Make sure to scrape the bowl’s sides and bottom.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the all-purpose flour, baking soda, salt, and baking powder. Add to the butter/starter mixture, stirring until evenly combined. Add the milk and mix until smooth.

Pour blueberry crumb cake batter in prepared cake pan. Top with berries, but do not mix.

To make the crumb topping: 

Whisk together the flour, sugar, cinnamon, and salt in a medium sized bowl. Add the vanilla extract to the melted butter. Stir to combine, then pour the butter into the flour mixture. Stir until you have a uniformly moist, crumb-like mixture.

Spread the batter in the prepared pan. Finally sprinkle the crumb mixture evenly over the top.

Bake for 50-55 minutes, until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean, and the edge of the cake just barely pulls away from the pan. Remove it from the oven and cool on a rack.

Cake can be stored at room temperature in the pan covered with plastic for several days. Or you can wrap it well and freeze for longer storage.

If you liked this Sourdough Crumb Cake Recipe, you might like these too:

How to Maintain and Feed Sourdough Starter

Sourdough Bread Recipe with Sample Timelines

Delicious Sourdough Dinner Rolls