How to Make Chewy Sourdough Chocolate Chunk Cookies
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Have you ever forgotten to discard your sourdough and just proceeded with feeding it? Then you end up with like a quart of sourdough starter and a husband who’s like, “I guess you’re baking some bread this weekend, huh?” Haha. Yeah. And Sourdough chocolate chunk cookies. Wait, what?
Sourdough Cookies are Weird but Good
No, I’m dead serious. Did you know you can add sourdough starter to your cookies? They come out weirdly amazing. Like, you can taste that little bit of sourdough flavor, sure. But it creates a backbone to support the flavor of your favorite chocolate.
So, while it sounds like it would be super weird, I need you to trust me. These cookies are totally worth the $5 in flour you just wasted trying to get your sourdough starter to thrive.
I found the inspiration from this recipe on I Am Baker. I didn’t have enough discard for her full recipe, but I also needed to use what I had, so I combined her notes and knowledge with my own chocolate chip cookie recipe. Here we are.
We’ve made chocolate chip cookies before, so I don’t want to bore you with the same details. However, we’re going to do things just a little bit differently with these sourdough chocolate chunk cookies. Ready?
Consider Chopping Your Chocolate
It’s easy to grab a bag of chocolate morsels and call it a day. But even though your sourdough is “discard,” these cookies are special. So, go to the trouble to picking up some good chocolate.
It’s just past Christmas as I’m writing this, so I had a little selection of stocking stuffer treats to work with. So, what did I pick for my cookies?
While I did end up using up the rest of my morsels, I also chopped into some luscious milk chocolate, too. When you chop up a chocolate bar, you end up with some shaved bits, some large chunks, and everything in between.
The speckles of chocolate throughout are key to making these cookies perfect. No matter how tiny a nibble you take, there will be chocolate in it. How can that be bad?
Also, sourdough and milk chocolate are actually well suited to each other. Often, you want semi-sweet or dark chocolate to cut the sweetness. That’s not an issue here because there’s a sour profile added to the flavor palette.
The State of Your Butter
In my post on chocolate chip cookies, I was all about browning your butter. And of course, if you’re up to the task, go for it! Browned butter adds nuttiness and is always well worth your time.
For this recipe, though, I felt that the sourdough flavor was already playing ball with some good chocolate flavor, so why add in another trendy player? I benched brown butter for this recipe so my sourdough could be the MVP.
So, what should your butter be like? I pop mine in the microwave (in a bowl of course) for about 30 seconds. It melts about halfway but most of it is still solid. This is perfection. It’s more than softened but it’s not quite melted.
Brown Sugar vs. White Sugar
We’re aiming for a chewy cookie, right? For that reason, light brown sugar is our friend. White sugar leads to a crispier cookie. We’re not here for that. Not today. We want chewy, gooey, basically underdone chocolate chunk cookie goodness.
If you’re worried brown sugar with overpower the sourdough flavor, no need to fret. You can taste them both! It’s awesome.
Scooping Your Sourdough Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Usually, I’m an eyeballing kind of person. However, as you can see, these cookies spread a little more than my usual cookie recipes. For that reason, I wanted a uniform dome shape for them all to spread evenly.
Controlling your dough ball shape helps you gauge how much spread to account for. I scoop, level off the scoop with the back of a butter knife, and dispense it on my tray.
I give about 2 inches of space between each dough ball. And sometimes, I still end up with cookies touching. While, they’re still hot, you can use the edge of your spatula to cut between the cookies. Give it a little wiggle, and no one will be able to tell that they ever touched.
Tools for Sourdough Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Here are the tools I recommend using for your cookies:
And that’s about it. I hope you love these cookies as much as I do!
Comment below if you have questions, concerns, or opinions. And tag me @ellejayathome on Instagram or Twitter if you share pictures from any of my recipes. I love to hear from you!
Sourdough Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Equipment
- Sheet pan and cooling rack
- Parchment paper or silicone baking mat
- Stand mixer with paddle attachment
- 2.5 Tbsp Cookie Scoop
Ingredients
- 13 Tbsp unsalted butter
- 1 cup light brown sugar
- 1 large egg room temperature
- ½ cup sourdough discard
- ½ Tbsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp pink himalayan sea salt
- ½ tsp baking soda
- 2¼ cups all purpose flour
- 2 cups your favorite chocolate chopped
Instructions
- Start by partially melting your butter about halfway. Add in the brown sugar and cream it until fluffy.
- Add in one large egg and beat until incorporated. Then add in your sourdough discard. Beat for 2 minutes.
- Add in vanilla, salt, baking soda, and flour, and mix until combined.
- Then, add in 2 cups worth of chocolate. I used 1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips, ½ cup of mini semi-sweet chocolate chips, and ½ cup of a good chocolate bar chopped into chunks. Mix this in really well to make sure there's chocolate throughout.
- Scoop out 3-ish Tbsp portions (using a cookie scoop, preferably, or eyeball it). Chill the dough balls for 1 hour uncovered, or up to 48 hours uncovered.
- Preheat your oven to 350ºF. Set 8 dough balls on a lined baking sheet, and bake for 12 to 15 minutes, depending on your preference for doneness.
- Allow them to cool for 5 minutes on the pan before moving to a cooling rack. Note that slightly underdone cookies make fall through the grates of your cooling rack, so you might try cooling on parchment paper on the counter instead.
