I have got to give my first post honouring my sourdough starter – Doug. His name changes every time I’m asked but for now it’s gonna be Doug ?
I’ve had this starter for 2 years now. Before New Zealand went on lockdown I had to take my starter with me – without a question! Kept it alive and well.
If you’d like to start your own sourdough starter, check out The Clever Carrot’s page https://www.theclevercarrot.com/2019/03/beginner-sourdough-starter-recipe/
How I came about this recipe is pretty simple: I want to use up my sourdough discards. I use my discards mainly to put in my bread doughs if I’m not making sourdough loaves. Another great thing about this recipe is that you can add on ingredients such as: adding any type of nuts (just half the chocolate chips or even omit the chocolate overall), or what I like to do which is half the flour and top up the rest with ground almonds. I like the slight chewiness it gives without it completely tasting like ALMONDS.
Sourdough Chocolate Chip Cookies
Equipment
- Stand mixer
- Kitchen scales
- Rubber spatula
- Ice cream scoop
Ingredients
- 200 grams Unsalted butter, softened
- 100 grams Brown sugar
- 100 grams Caster sugar
- 1 Egg
- 240 grams Sourdough starter (unfed/discard)
- 5 grams Vanilla bean paste/extract
- 250 grams Flour
- 5 grams Salt
- 5 grams Baking soda
- 450 grams Chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 175°C / 350°F.
- Cream the butter and both sugars in a stand mixer with a beater until light and fluffy. The colour should look pale, if there is still a yellow tinge to it, beat it for longer.
- Add the egg and vanilla, mix until incorporated; then add the sourdough starter. Once that's added the mix should look like a thick cake batter.
- Sieve the flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl and whisk. I like to whisk the baking soda with the flour for even leavening distribution.*
- Once they are combined, fold in the chocolate chips. The end mixture will look very thick and wet which is fine. Cover the dough with cling wrap and refrigerate for 20 minutes.*
- With an ice cream scoop, (I used a No.16 / 81ml scoop) scoop into a baking tray lined with baking paper. Make sure to leave room as they tend to spread out. Bake for 15 minutes.*
*TIPS:
- When creaming butter and sugar together, make sure that the butter is very soft; keep beating until the mixture looks pale and fluffy, this indicates that the sugar has dissolved into the butter. In the winter season, I wrap the butter in cling film and microwave it 10 seconds at a time until soft, be careful not to melt.
- Always whisk the leavening with the flour, whether it is baking powder or baking soda or both, and not put it directly into the wet ingredients, unless of course specified. It’s a great habit to have as doing so will ensure even distribution of leavening throughout the batter/dough.
- As a preference I like my cookies thicccc (always 4 c’s) I like to refrigerate my cookie doughs before I put them in the oven, because this gives the butter in the dough a chance to firm up, preventing the cookie from spreading out too much becoming too thin.
- Remember that baking times are only a guide. With baking, everything matters: the weather, climate, temperature of ingredients, and most importantly OVENS. All ovens are different, my oven at home is different and so are the ovens that I use at work. These are guides only; your senses are your best indicators, like how you can smell when something is burning ?.
I hope you try this recipe out let me know how it goes!
-Alyana ?
