Monday, February 7, 2011

Sourdough Carrot Cake with Warm Cream Cheese Lemon Sauce

I love Monday. It's the day I share a little on how to cook with food storage, make a mix, or in this case, use sourdough. Really, I just get giddy happy sharing ways to have some inexpensive wholesome goodies.
Two weeks ago my husband Ace brought home this great sourdough cookbook from Alaska called Simply Sourdough The Alaska Way by Kathy Doogan. I was able to contact the author,and ask her if I could share a recipe or two with all of you. Well, she was more than gracious to let me do so, with the understanding that I wouldn't change her recipe and I would give her the credit for her work. I'm all about that here. All the recipes in the book that I have tried so far, have been outstanding. I will however never forget the day I chose to make her sourdough carrot cake. It was National Carrot Cake day last week...a day that will live in infamy as the day...I found the most evil wonderful carrot cake ever.
I made my own Homemade Sourdough Starter and the method is very similar to what Kathy outlined in her book. Mind you, I used the starter that came with the book, just to see how wonderful it would really be. Here's what it ended up looking like...
Feel free to use the regular cream cheese frosting that Kathy uses. It was really quite good. However, the second time we made the cake, I used my recipe for cream cheese lemon sauce. It reminded me so much of my grandmother's carrot pudding with lemon sauce, that I almost cried.

Chef Tess' Cream Cheese Lemon Sauce

1/2 cup sugar
1 cup water
2T cornstarch
1/4 cup cream cheese, softened ( I make Homemade cream cheese )
2 T lemon juice (fresh)
1 tsp lemon zest (micro-grated)
fresh grated nutmeg

Directions: Mix sugar and cornstarch in a medium sized sauce pan. Add water gradually, stirring constantly. Bring to a boil and cook 5 minutes. Add cream cheese, lemon juice, zest and a little fresh grated nutmeg. Remove from heat. Stir until cream cheese has melted and combined completely with sauce. Serve warm over carrot cake.

This would also be amazing on the Sourdough Maple Ginger Cake. Should you feel the urge to bake a second cake this week...that's the one I would use.

2 comments:

Mama Peck said...

That looks delicious! I just wish I could convert my cute hubby to sourdough. He's just not a fan. Although, if anything could win him over, it just might be this carrot cake! :)

Goob said...

we so DON'T need a carrot cake sitting around our house right now, but i'm almost not able to resist. Carrot cake isn't exactly traditional for Valentine's day, but it may find a way to our table anyways. I need some kind of excuse to justify this crazy kind of indulgence.