Amish Friendship Snack Cake

A friend recently gave me some Amish Friendship Bread starter*. I had some a long time ago, but it got tossed in one of our many moves. I was excited about the possibility of getting some sourdough going again, but I didn’t care for the cloyingly sweet recipe version that calls for instant pudding mix (ewww!) and decided to look for alternatives.
I adapted a less-sweet, lower-fat version that I found online into this tasty snack. It has a nice, yeasty, cinnamon-y flavor, without being too sweet. It would be nice for breakfast, too
Amish Friendship Snack Cake
1 cup sugar
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon or (cinnamon spice blend)
1 cup Amish Friendship starter
1/3 cup applesauce
1/3 cup vegetable or canola oil
3 eggs
2 tsp vanilla or 1 1/2 tsp vanilla and 1/2 tsp McCormick Vanilla Butter & Nut extract)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Grease and flour a 13 X 9 inch baking pan (or spray with nonstick spray.)
In a large mixing bowl, combine sugar, flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. In a smaller mixing bowl, stir together the starter, applesauce, oil, eggs and vanilla.
Pour the liquid ingredients into the bowl of dry ingredients and gently stir until just combined. Pour the batter into the baking pan and bake for about 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. The cake will just barely be beginning to pull away from the sides of the pan and the top of the cake will be firm and evenly browned.
Allow the cake to cool completely before cutting into pieces for serving.
Great after-school snack with some fruit and a glass of milk!
*If you’re not familiar with Amish Friendship Bread starter, it’s a version of sourdough (to be honest, I’m not sure what, if anything, distinguishes it from “regular” sourdough.) The sourdough can be used to make a variety of baked goods and is ready to use every 10 days. The sourdough starter needs to be “fed” during the 10 day period prior to use (my version recommends that this be done on Day 6) by stirring in a mixture of sugar, flour and milk. Each time that you use the starter, it will grow and multiply, providing extra starter that you can pass along to your friends (with, in my experience, mixed receptions.)