Sourdough Chocolate Chip Cookies

I have just one pet. His name is Donatello (named after the turtle, not the artist). He’s a 3 year old sourdough starter.

I’m very proud of the fact that he’s been alive and kicking for so long–but at the same time, over the holiday season, I can confess that the bustle that is my annual 12 Days of Christmas series typically makes me neglect him a bit in terms of giving him regular feedings.

The New Year is usually the period of time where Donatello and I play catch up, so I’ve been feeding my big boy a lot over the past few weeks.

If you know anything about sourdough baking, then you’ll know what that means:

I have had quite a bit of sourdough discard on my hands.

Feeding a sourdough starter involves mixing together specific ratios of water, flour and existing sourdough starter. Often those ratios are equal, but sometimes they’re not, it all depends on the sourdough starter’s health, the time of year and the current climate. My feedings of Donatello do typically go with equal part water, flour and starter.

About several hours after a feeding, the starter will/should grow in size and bubble a lot on the surface; this means that it is ‘active’ and healthy. After this, you stir it down, measure out the appropriate amount of starter, match it with more water and flour, then begin the process all over again. What is ‘left’ of the starter that grew is the excess/the discard, so named because, well, if you’re going to use it to bake a loaf of sourdough bread, then you typically just discard it.

OR, you can find alternate uses for it in other baked good recipes.

Since I’ve been baking sourdough and keeping a starter pet for going on 3 years now, I’ve done lots of experimentation with sourdough discard as an ingredient. Whereas I speak a lot about Blank Canvas Recipes, I like to think of sourdough discard as a Blank Canvas Ingredient; the possibilities of what you can do with it are just about endless. It works great as both an added flavor and an added texture (think softer, moister) to a lot of things.

You can use it to make cracker dough.

you can use it in biscuit dough,

you can use it to make banana bread batter,

It even works great in pancake batter.

Today, I’m pleased to be able to share another delicious use for it.

Did you know that sourdough discard makes AMAZING chocolate chip cookies?

I didn’t, until about a month ago. But it does. It really, really does.

Guys, I have made a LOT of chocolate chip cookies, experimenting with a lot of different recipes to make them in a lot of different ways.

It’s been fun, but it’s also made me somewhat picky when it comes to how I enjoy my chocolate chip cookies. It takes a lot for a new chocolate chip cookie to impress me.

This one did.

If you’re familiar to the game, then you’ll see that this recipe features all of the usual suspects that you’re used to seeing in a chocolate chip recipe. The sourdough discard really is the only wild card, but I must say, it does make a great contribution to the party. The tang/sour flavor of the discard lends itself really well to the cookie dough, which is pretty sweet on its own. It also works as a great complement to the slight bitterness of the semisweet chocolate. One of my pet peeves when it comes to chocolate chip cookies are their texture; for me, they must be soft, slightly chewy in the middle and juuuust beginning to crisp at the edges.

These do all of those things, and to be honest, the texture is one of my favorite parts about them, which I am sure the sourdough discard did a lot towards helping them bake and stay moist. An addition of toffee bits gives them an added layer of ‘crunch’ to balance that soft chewiness.

In the month since I first tried this recipe out, I’ve already made these twice. That’s how much we enjoyed them, and if you’re like me and have a bit of sourdough starter sitting around that you really really don’t want to just throw away: may I please suggest that you try it in these. You will not regret it.

Sharing at Fiesta Friday #626.