Soft, Chewy, Sweet & Salty! These Vegan Sourdough Discard Cookies are ridiculously moreish! They’ll be your next favourite cookie!
Now I hear what you’re thinking. Discard doesn’t sound like something I’d want in my cookie! But dear reader, you must reconsider. These are the most delicious cookies everrr and using up sourdough discard is a major win!
What is sourdough discard?
If you’re familiar with nurturing a sourdough starter, you’ll be well aware that it takes alotttt of feeding. Its essentially like having a pet, except you can leave this one in the fridge for a few weeks at a time! When your starter is in constant use however, it will need to be fed atleast two times a day. And by fed, I mean given flour and water in equal quantities.
Now obviously if you just kept feeding a starter, it would become enormous! So this is where the discard part comes in. Every time you feed the starter you ‘discard’ some too. This is clearly a big waste, as you’re chucking ingredients down the drain! Which is why discard recipes are so sought after!
As the discard is essentially just flour and water, it can be substituted into a lot of recipes, though it does take some adjusting. Which is where these delicious cookies come in!
How do you make sourdough cookies?
So I first read about the idea of making sourdough cookies on Edd Kimbers blog The Boy Who Bakes. He’s an incredible baker who I’ve followed since he won the first series of Bake Off. I thought his idea was just GENIUS. And its what inspired me to create my Sourdough Madelines!
The sourdough discard gives the cookies a subtle sour tang which is just so delicious. Honestly, they’re the best cookies I’ve made. Hands down.
So inspired by Edd and his cookies, I set to work figuring out how I could veganise it!
- The first issue was butter, which as usual was easily solved by vegan alternatives! Make sure you use a block style butter though, as you don’t want a soft margarine type for these cookies. The butter needs to be ‘browned’ to make way for the discard in the recipe. This essentially means to cook out the water content, and leaves you with a delicious nutty flavour.
- Then there’s chocolate. I generally prefer a dark chocolate in my cookie, as I think it balances really well with the sugars in the dough and flaked sea salt on top. Luckily there are many vegan friendly dark chocolates out there! As always though – buy a bar not chips or chunks! Trust me, its wayyyy better.
- Finally, the egg. Now this is partly solved already as to include the sourdough starter the egg white has to be removed (so there isn’t excess liquid in the dough). This left me with the egg yolk which adds richness to the cookie. So I substituted this for a vegan soy yoghurt. It helps with fat content and helps to bind. It worked a charm!
And there we have it, a veganised cookie!
Honestly I’ve really enjoyed creating vegan recipes this month and I think I’m definitely going to include more vegan baking into my regular schedule. I’ve definitely ended on a high with these cookies though!
They’re chewy, soft, sweet and salty. Everything you could want in a cookie, and they’re INCREDIBLY moreish still warm from the oven. Honestly, its dangerous.
On with the recipe!
Vegan Sourdough Discard Cookies
Ingredients
- 115 g unsalted vegan block butter
- 110 g caster sugar
- 110 g soft light brown sugar
- 20 g vegan yoghurt
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 120 g sourdough discard
- 190 g plain flour
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 250 g vegan dark chocolate
- flaked sea salt to taste
Instructions
- Firstly, brown the butter by placing the butter into a small saucepan over a medium heat. Cook, stirring every now and then, until the butter has foamed for about 5 minutes. Be careful, it will spit up quite a lot. Then pour into a large bowl – the butter should now weigh around 95g.
- Add both sugars into the bowl and whisk together using an electric hand whisk until combined and with no lumps. Add the yoghurt and vanilla, then whisk for 2-3 minutes until the mixture is paler in colour. (It will look like cake mix at this point) Then add the sourdough discard and dry ingredients and mix again to combine.
- Finally, chop the chocolate roughly and mix into the dough by hand. Then place a sheet of clingfilm directly onto the dough and chill in the fridge for 2 hours.
- Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/Gas Mark 4 and line a large baking tray with baking paper. Roll the cookie dough into balls roughly 70g in size and place 4 balls on the baking tray with space to spread. Place the remaining balls back in the fridge to chill.
- Bake for 17 minutes. Then once removed, rap the baking tray down on the cooling rack to stop the cookies from puffing, and leave on the tray for 10 minutes to cool. As they're cooling, sprinkle over flaked sea salt. Then place on a cooling rack to cool completely. Repeat the process until all the balls are baked.
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