Not Your Average Chocolate Chip Cookie

Sourdough, brown butter, miso, two types of chocolate, and flakey sea salt. It may sound overcomplicated, and plenty of recipes are–why mess with a classic? But this recipe is different. Each additional element is worthwhile in creating the ULTIMATE chocolate chip cookie that is crisp on the outside, chewy on the inside, oozing with chocolate, and flavorful like none other. You won’t regret it.

Baking with sourdough discard:

If you have a sourdough starter, you probably know the amount of waste that comes with maintaining it. Each time you feed it, you must discard a large portion of it, otherwise you’ll end up with an ever-growing sourdough starter that needs more and more flour to stay alive. But this discard doesn’t have to go to waste. It can be added to a number of baked items, such as crackers, pancakes, biscuits, and cookies.

Since sourdough discard is made up of flour and water, you can add it to any recipe by substituting some of the flour and liquid for the discard. Cookies don’t typically call for liquid like water or milk, but they do contain liquid in the form of butter and eggs. To add sourdough discard to cookies, we can reduce the liquid in the recipe by evaporating some water from the butter (by browning it), and by using only egg yolks without the whites. This is a win-win since browning the butter enriches the flavor of the cookies significantly, and I’ve also found that using only egg yolks yields a chewier, richer cookie, which is my personal texture preference.

Recipe:

Prep time: 20 minutes

Bake time: 14 minutes

Chilling time: 4+ hours

Yield: 24 cookies

Ingredients:

380g all-purpose flour

350g dark chocolate, roughly chopped*

240g sourdough starter discard (100% hydration)*

225g (2 sticks) unsalted butter, diced

220g white sugar

220g light brown sugar

3 large egg yolks

2 tbsp miso paste*

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp flaked sea salt

1 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions:

  1. Brown the butter* (don’t skip this step!). Add the butter to a saucepan over medium-high heat and cook, stirring occasionally, until the butter melts, bubbles, and begins foaming. It will be a fairly slow process until the end, when the milk fat solids begin to brown very quickly, so keep a close eye to avoid burning. When it turns a nice golden brown, remove from the heat and let cool slightly. You should have about 185g of butter left (since most of the water has now evaporated).

  2. At this point, whisk the miso paste into the still-warm butter. This should help the paste mix more evenly, and the hot butter helps bloom the miso flavor a bit. 

  3. Meanwhile, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a medium bowl.

  4. When the butter has cooled off (it’s okay if it’s still warm to the touch, you just don’t want it steaming hot), add the sugars and whisk to combine. 

  5. Then add the eggs, sourdough discard, and vanilla extract and mix together. 

  6. Add the flour mixture and mix together, switching to a spatula to ensure there are no pockets of flour left unmixed. The dough will be soft and malleable. 

  7. Add in the chopped chocolate and fold until evenly distributed. 

  8. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 4 hours or up to 2 days. The longer you refrigerate the dough, the more the sourdough will ferment, and its flavor will develop. 

  9. When ready to bake, preheat your oven to 350˚ F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. 

  10. Using a large cookie scoop (mine is 3.25oz), scoop dough onto cookie sheets, leaving at least 2 inches between each cookie. Bake for 14 minutes or until lightly browned all over, rotating racks halfway through to ensure an even bake. 

  11. Remove from the oven and lightly tap trays on the counter. Immediately sprinkle with flakey sea salt. Optionally, for a more uniform appearance, use a cookie cutter or large glass (such as a martini glass) around the cookie, moving it in a circular motion up against the edges to shape it into a perfect circle. 

  12. Let the cookies cool for a few minutes, transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely. Store in an airtight container for up to 5 days. You can also freeze the balls of dough for up to a month and bake straight from frozen, adding an extra minute or two to the baking time. 

Notes:

*I like to use half 85% and half 70% baking bars (such as Ghirardelli). You can use whatever you have on hand, including chocolate chips, but I prefer chopping up my own bars as I can control the size of the chunks, and it yields a more rustic look to the final cookies.

*This just means that the sourdough starter was fed equal parts water and flour. So if you have 100g of starter, feed it 100g of flour and 100g of water. This will activate the starter and you’ll see it double in size and get very bubbly. After it has fallen (usually about 12 hours after feeding), it is considered “discard”. You can bake with it at this point, or store it in the fridge for up to 2 weeks. Any longer than this, it may over-ferment which will yield a sour flavor in your baking. 

*I use organic white miso paste, which adds a subtle salty, umami flavor to the cookies. You can use whatever you want, but different types (like red miso) may change the flavor of the cookie. 

*As I mentioned earlier, browning the butter removes some water from the butter, which is a crucial step since we are also adding sourdough discard. If you skip it, the dough will be too moist and will yield a much different cookie texture.