Lightly salty and deeply caramelized, these miso-butter chocolate chip cookies are fermented with sourdough discard for extra gut friendly results (think lower carbs and gluten).
(Sourdough Discard) Chocolate Chip Cookies 🍪
with a salty miso-butter
I’ve brought you a handful of successful cookie batches over the years– from my bakery-style keto chocolate chip cookies (with near 500 reviews!) to my brown-butter almond flour ones (and, arguably, my skillet cookie should be up on the podium too).
But, dare I say, these sourdough fermented cookie batch might just be my favorite. Because while the texture is ace (think chewy with lightly crisp edges)(and ripples galore!), their special magic truly lies in the depth of flavor imparted courtesy of both the miso-butter and our sourdough). For little beats the resulting umami from various forms of fermentation– including the light added acidity of your discard.
the fermentation deets
That said, always (always!) remember when baking with your sourdough discard that its still a live culture and will do its thing– i.e. chomp through your flour. So be sure to not leave your cookie dough to hang for more than 2 days in the fridge, or you might end up cookies that bake like this:
See the lack of structure and ripples in the cookies? That would be the lack of gluten in the flour now.
And see the pale color throughout? A lack of Maillard reaction taking place: the non-enzymatic reaction leading to the formation of compounds which ultimately polymerize to form brown pigments (i.e. your cookies now lack the necessary carbs in the flour to brown properly).
The bottom line? Don’t overdo your fermentation, imho a 24 hour hang out in the fridge is plenty 👩🔬
p.s. my one other vip suggestion is to use a 50/50 mix of chocolate chips and dark chocolate chunks (as a 70% chocolate will ensure it melts nicely through the crinkles) – giving you a supreme texture.
(Fermented!) Sourdough Discard Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 227 g unsalted butter at room temperature
- 210 g brown sugar
- 100 g granulated sugar
- 1 1/2 tablespoon light miso paste * or 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon blackstrap molasses optional
- 1 egg
- 100g sourdough discard
- 270 g (unbleached!) all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt **use the larger amount for a 'salted' version!
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 170 g chocolate chunks or chocolate chips!
- 70 g pecans roughly chopped (optional, but so good)
- flaky sea salt to garnish
Instructions
- Cream butter in a large bowl with an electric mixer until softened, 1-2 minutes. Add in sugars and molasses (optional, but *highly* suggested for deeply caramelized umami notes), and continue to cream until light and fluffy (about 8 minutes).
- Add in miso paste, vanilla extract and egg, mixing until just incorporated. The mixture will appear slightly 'broken' (i.e. not thoroughly smooth).
- Add in your sourdough discard and mix until thoroughly combined. With your mixer on low, add in half of your flour mixture- mixing until just incorporated. Mix in the rest.
- Fold in chocolate and pecan bits. Cover with cling film and refrigerate for 1 hour (at least, but preferably overnight!)
- Preheat oven to 350°F/180°C and line a baking tray with parchment paper.
- Scoop out the cookie dough into 30 rounds for 3" cookies, and flatten them slightly if you want your cookies to spread out a bit more = crispier cookies (so if you like them cakier just don't flatten them too much!)(I usually do a test run with one cookie to see how the dough bakes in my oven).
- Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until golden brown– garnishing with flaky sea salt as soon as they come out of the oven.
- Store in an airtight container for three to four days and freeze for up to 3 months.
- Note: the shaped dough can be frozen for up to 3 months, and they can be baked straight from the freezer (adding 2-3 minutes more to the baking time).
Video
Welcome back! Enjoyed the newsletter very much
thank you for the warm welcome back TB, its so nice to hear from you all again!
But in all seriousness, its so good to hear from you Paola! Looking forward to hearing more, its been a long time coming
Its so good to hear form you Jenn! I can’t believe how many of you have reached out and are still hitting reply to my emails- looking forward to sharing more and, yes, its been a VERY long time coming 🙂
STOP EVERYTHING, GNOM GNOM JUST POSTED!! 🙂
lmao!
Thank you, Paolo. I’ve missed you but make your recipes. This sounds wonderful. I remember the last story. I think last year? I tell people about you and your healing journey. I have a sciatic nerve damage on my left side from lifting my husband up and back in a chair after he had hip surgery in 2007. The pain was excruciating! I manage it with boron in water a few times a week and good food that’s 75% keto. I do bake bread. I have my pain under control. Psilocybin I might consider in the future. I look forward making these cookies! Thank you for the update. Very positive!
Mary thank you for still reading (and baking!) after all these years, its so good to hear from you! I’m really sorry to hear about the part of you also experiencing sciatic nerve injury (it’s truly excruciating!). I hope in a way that you can also find a little extra relief in my story, but than you for sharing with me what’s working for you. Big kiss and thanks for your heartfelt message!
Hello
I opened an email from you and found your story very interesting. Are these cookies Magic?
Im interested in how to make
the fermented discard stuff?
Are these keto friendly, seems not because of the sugar.
Thank you
I’m so glad you found today’s newsletter interesting Marie, and these cookies are certainly magic tasting (keep your eyes posted on more of the upcoming emails ;)!
Re our recipe, fermenting with sourdough greatly removes carbs (say my sourdough discard is completely keto friendly so a recipe like my pancakes that you can currently find posted on my Substack newsletter are indeed keto friendly). But you are right and these cookies aren’t keto, but they could become low carb if using a sweetener. I hope this helped!
Sooo glad you are back…
I was looking for low carb tortillas and your recipe shows up, I’m thinking I’ll need to get out my printed cookbook for that recipe, like why I’m I searching for that recipe. So WHATEVER I clicked on it hoping the link would load, my heart skipped a couple of beats when it actually did show up! I’m beginning my sourdough adventure and I had put her name on my list to see where you were with that. And here you are, welcome back, glad you’re here for yourself and of course us