Category: sourdough

Cookies make you popular everywhere you go. These chocolate sourdough treats are almost cookie shaped brownies. Do not despair if you’re not a sourdough baker – there is a substitute in the recipe below. There are a couple of nifty tricks to make these cookies Instagram worthy as well as delicious. The recipe is quick but requires some time to chill the dough.

If you don’t have sourdough starter – there is a substitute below.

The cocoa powder and the chocolate chips are the stars here, use the best quality you can.

Let’s get straight to the recipe. As written, it makes 60 moderate cookies, 40 plus sized cookies.

Ingredients

• 240 grams plain white flour ( 2 cups)
• 80 grams cocoa powder (1 cup)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 150 grams of unsalted butter (2/3 cup)
• 75 grams milk chocolate or white chocolate chips (1/2 cup)
• 75 grams dark chocolate chips (1/2 cup)
• 200 grams granulated sugar (1 cup)
• 400 grams light brown sugar (2 cups)
• 4 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 170 grams of sourdough starter discard (or 85 grams of lukewarm water, 85 grams of plain flour = beaten well together). (2/3 cup)

Method

1. In the bowl of your stand mixer, combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. Add the sugars. Mix well.
2. Place the butter and about 1/4 of the chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave for 30 seconds, stir. Return to microwave for 15 second intervals, stirring after each until the chocolate chips are dissolved.
3. Start the stand mixer with the dry ingredients in the bowl. Pour in the melted butter and chocolate. Beat until creamy.
4. Break the eggs into a separate bowl. Add vanilla and beat lightly.
5. Pour into the stand mixer and mix well. Do not over beat from this point because you’ll beat the eggs to death. Well combined but no more.
6. Add the sourdough discard or flour/water mixture.
7. Stir in the chocolate chips.
8. Chill the batter in the refrigerator for at least an hour.
9. Preheat oven to 190C (170C fan). Prep baking sheets with silicon mats or parchment. You must line the baking sheets or you’ll end up with a sticky mess. I use parchment for this recipe because I lift the sheets off the baking trays (intact) to help the cookies cool.
10. Scoop batter onto prepared baking sheets. I use my smaller trigger scoop ( size of a cake pop) to get moderate sized cookies. Use the golf ball sized scoop to get larger cookies. Adjust the spacing on the baking sheets accordingly. The cookies will spread – no need to flatten.
11. Keep an eye on the cookies, 8 to 10 minutes depending on your oven.
12. If I’m doing ‘Instagram worthy’ cookies, I put the batter back in the fridge in between prepping baking trays. Otherwise, just get them all ready and cycle through the oven.
13. Remove the cookies from the oven – cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheet then lift the liner off the baking sheets with the cookies on it to cool altogether.
14. These cookies benefit from a longer cooling period. They do tend to stick to the parchment so I flip the sheet over and peel it off the bottom of the cookies.

I find these keep well for a week or more (if there are any left) in a airtight container but make sure they are well cooled first.

Thank you for reading the blog and trying the recipes. Feedback much appreciated and tag me @mamadolson on Instagram and Twitter if you’re posting photos.

What’s best thing to do with excess ripe bananas? Make banana bread! My recipe is based on this original from Hannah at Make it Dough. I’ve made some adjustments to use whole wheat flour and brown sugar and reduced the amount of sugar as well. That made my version a bit heavier so I went with a traditional loaf shape. It’s the Davinator’s new top snack – combines 3 of his favourites: bananas, peanut butter and chocolate.

I pounced on this recipe because I was ‘long’ on bananas and on peanut butter. I don’t really like the texture of bananas but this bread has a great banana taste, seemingly enhanced by the peanut butter. We try and eat healthy but like our treats, so this recipe is a good compromise.

You can use sourdough discard in this recipe or there is an easy alternative if you’re not a sourdough fanatic.

Let’s get baking.

Recipe

Ingredients

• 95 grams all purpose flour (not self rising)
• 95 grams whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp baking soda – SODA not powder
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 85 grams peanut butter of your choice (chunky or smooth)
• 55 grams unsalted butter – melted and slightly cooled
• 180 grams brown sugar (any type)
• 50 grams sourdough discard or 25 grams flour and 25 grams of water)
• 25 grams of milk (whole or semi-skimmed)
• 2 eggs
• 225 grams of mashed banana (2 large or 3 medium bananas)
• 1 tsp of vanilla
• Handful of chocolate chips or chopped nuts of your preference

Method

1. Preheat the oven 170C (160C fan) or 350F. Prepare a loaf pan (standard 2 pound or 800 gram pan). I line my pans with paper but you can grease and flour instead.
2. Whisk together the flours, salt and baking soda in a medium bowl.
3. Combine the peanut butter, cooled melted butter and the sugar in your mixer bowl. Beat until mixture appears very well combined.
4. Incorporate the eggs one at time, beating until well integrated.
5. Add the mashed banana, sourdough discard (or flour and water mixture) and the vanilla to the mixer bowl and beat until well combined.
6. Using a dough whisk or a spatula, fold in half the flour mixture. Add the milk and the remaining flour. Like any quick bread – resist the temptation to over beat at this stage. Scrape up all the dry bits from the bottom.
7. Sprinkle your chocolate chips or nuts on the top. I pressed down gently to encourage them to sink into the top. They still form a sort of chocolate topping, which we loved.
8. Pour into your pan and transfer to the oven. Bake for approximately 50 minutes. Keep an eye on the top and cover loosely with foil if over browning. Test with a temperate probe – it should be over 90C in the centre or a toothpick should come out clean.

Enjoy! We topped ours with cream cheese or a couple of spoonfuls of Greek yogurt.

Thanks for reading the blog, cooking the recipes and sending in your requests.

You don’t need sourdough starter discard to make this recipe, I’ve included a version below without starter. With the sourdough starter – it is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. Without the starter, it’s still great and will make better crackers than you can buy. The recipe is infinitely flexible; you can change the type of flour, the type of fat, the seasonings, the type of seeds and the toppings. I suggest that you make it as per the instructions the first time to get the technique down.

I made this several times, altering the seasonings each time until arriving at this recipe. The Davinator said ‘write that one down quick so you don’t lose it’.

Is this recipe easy? It requires some technique. This is a good recipe to practice your rolling technique and working with parchment paper because the ingredients are inexpensive. There are a couple of gadgets that make it easier and quicker. But you don’t need the gadgets. Useful gadgets for this recipe; a marble rolling pin, a spike dough roller and pizza cutter.

The good trick in this recipe – roll out the dough between two sheets of parchment paper. You can roll thin and even and make lovely crackers.

Recipe

Ingredients (see all the flexes below)

• 350g sourdough starter discard
• 100g whole wheat flour
• 100g all purpose or bread flour
• 60 mls olive oil
• 1 Teaspoon salt
• Water – a couple tablespoons as needed to bring the dough together
• 1 teaspoon of chilli flakes, crushed ( I ground in a small mortar)
• 2 teaspoons of Italian herbs
• 2 teaspoons of sesame seeds
• Salt grinder for topping
• All purpose flour for rolling out

Method

1. Pre-heat your oven to 160C fan (180C with no fan) (350F)
2. Put all the ingredients except the water in a bowl that fits your mixer. Mix well, then use the dough hook and ‘knead’ in the mixer for 3 minutes or so. You’re not trying to develop gluten here so longer isn’t better.
3. If the dough has formed into a ball, you’re ready to roll out. If not, add cold water a tablespoon at a time and knead for 30 seconds until the dough comes together in a ball. Should take one or two tablespoons at the most.
4. Cut parchment to fit your baking sheets. I used four baking sheets to bake these crackers, you can rotate yours. You also need at least one additional parchment sheet to use as a cover.
5. Place a sheet of parchment on your rolling surface. Flour the parchment, place about 1/4 of the dough on the sheet. Flatten with your hands, and flour the surface. Roll the dough flat and as thin as your nerve will tolerate. This is where the heavy rolling pin comes into its own – focus on getting the middle part flat and then the edges.
6. Flip the parchment with dough over and peel off what was the bottom piece (easier than peeling off the top piece). Using a fork or your spiky roller punch a lot of holes in the dough. Puncturing the dough keeps your crackers from getting puffy. Take your pizza cutter or a knife and cut the crackers into pieces. You do not need to separate the crackers on the parchment.
7. Slide the parchment onto a baking sheet and place in the oven for about 20 minutes on the upper shelf. I put the first sheet in and then roll out the second. At 10 minutes, I move the first sheet to the lower shelf and put the new sheet in on the upper shelf. Or prep two, rotate them half way through.
8. 20 minutes is a guide – keep an eye on the crackers because the edges will usually be thinner (especially in the beginning) and will brown more quickly.
9. Remove from the oven and let them cool on the baking sheets if you can so the crackers get just a little crisper. If the crackers feel soft or chewier – put them back in the oven for 3 minutes at a time.
10. Let cool before eating, In theory, these will keep for 10 days to 2 weeks. In this house, there have never been any left after 48 hours.

Flexing this recipe

There are so many ways to customise this recipe. Here are some suggestions:

1. No sourdough starter? Use 175 grams of flour (whole wheat, bread, all purpose) and 175 mls of water instead. You won’t get the sourdough tang but still really lovely crackers.
2. Vary the mix of flour in the recipe. Use rye, more white, less white, more whole wheat. I haven’t used any alternative flours like blue farina or spelt but it’s worth a try. Keep an eye on how much water you need.
3. Use different types of fat. I’ve used butter, bacon fat, sesame oil (very strong taste). We’ve settled on olive oil. Your fat should be liquid when mixing the dough so melt in advance.
4. Go wild with the seasonings. You can use up to 6 or 7 teaspoons of small seeds – sesame, black sesame, flax, hemp. Rosemary. Black pepper. Cumin. Oregano. Garlic or onion salt. Use combinations that you like and what you have in the cupboard. I found three open containers of chilli flakes – hence the chilli in this recipe.

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I’ve been working on my sourdough bread recently and try to strengthen my starter (named Liz by the way after a baker and teacher who has inspired me. I also like to take a treat for the team and clients at Smartworks where I volunteer on Wednesday. These two things came together and resulted in some of the best cookies I’ve ever made.

When you’re trying to strengthen your sourdough starter, you feed your starter everyday. This means you have discard. On the one hand, it’s only flour and water, on the other hand, I don’t like to throw stuff away. I was searching for things to make with the discard and found the basis for this recipe. I did misread the quantity in the original – it said ‘makes 20 cookies’. Accurate but those would be 20 giant American cookies, not cookies sized for normal humans. Even too big for the Davinator.

In my test bake, I rashly doubled the recipe and so I had enough dough for 40 giant cookies. I recalibrated the size (made them smaller) but of course that meant we had a lot of cookies. It rained cookies on friends and family.

The recipe below is adjusted to make 40 cookies for ordinary humans. You might not be a sourdough baker today. But these cookies are so good it’s worth making sourdough starter just for these bad boys.

Recipe

Ingredients

• 113 grams plain white flour
• 1 tsp baking soda (4 grams)
• 1 tsp salt (6 grams)
• 55 grams unsalted butter, melted
• 86 grams vegetable oil (corn or sunflower)
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 175 grams brown sugar (any type)
• 110 grams caster sugar
• 70 grams sourdough starter discard (can be straight from the fridge)
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 280 grams rolled oats (not instant oatmeal)
• 60 grams dried cranberries or raisins
• 100 grams chopped walnuts
• 100 grams good quality chocolate chips (any variety – milk, dark, white as you like)

Method

Preheat your oven to 190C (170C fan). Cover several baking sheets with parchment paper.

1. Whisk flour, salt and baking soda (SODA) together in a bowl set to one side.
2. Chop your walnuts. You make want to rough chop your dried fruit as well depending on the size. Combine with the chocolate chips and set aside.
3. Melt the butter (microwave works well) and allow to cool for a few minutes. (Make a cup of tea or play a round of Angry Birds).
4. Stir the cinnamon into the butter. Follow with the brown sugar, caster sugar and oil – whisk until well combined. The mixture should be close to room temperature by now.
5. Add the sourdough starter, the egg, the yolk and the vanilla – whisk again until well combined.
6. Using a wooden spoon, spatula or a dough whisk (see photo below) stir in the flour mixture.
7. Follow by folding in the oats, fruit, nuts and chocolate. The mixture should be thick and stiff. Resist the temptation to eat it raw immediately. It looks yummy but it’s even better after baking.
8. Measure out your dough balls. I use a small trigger scoop (see photo below). You want about 1 1/2 to 2 tablespoons by volume for each dough ball.
9. Drop the dough on to the baking sheets, leaving about 5 cms between each cookie. Flatten slightly with your fingers or a spoon. The cookies will spread when baking.
10. Bake one sheet at a time for 8 to 10 minutes. The centre should be soft but not wet and the edges crisp and starting to brown.
11. Cool on cookie sheet for five minutes then transfer to a rack to cool completely.

Let them cool please, don’t burn your mouth like someone I know did. These cookies keep well for five days or more in the fridge. I stored mine in a cardboard box with parchment paper. Avoid a sealed ziplock or a plastic container as the cookies are very moist and will get soggy, I think.

Happy baking. Please comment, share and send requests and photos of your baking.

This recipe needs a good sourdough starter. And you need time and patience and to trust your judgement on the proving and rising. But it’s worth the effort. There are a number of links in this blog to other parts of the baking community; sources for baking stuff, detailed descriptions of creating a sourdough starter and a link to a really good book on bread but it does not start with ‘make sourdough starter’.

Try different types of chocolate chips and dried fruit. Two combinations that worked well for me; 1) milk chocolate chips and raisins and 2) dark chocolate and dried cranberries. The Davinator loved this bread so much he said ‘don’t leave any in the house, I can’t stop eating it’. And it even tempted the ‘no carbs’ crowd into trying it. It’s rich and tasty but it’s not sweet. There’s no added sugar, just some chocolate morsels and dried fruit.

Always use top quality cocoa and chocolate chips in baking. Cheap chocolate is waxy and unpleasant. A good European brand like Callebaut makes a difference.

This recipe is a little hard on the nerves but worth the effort. As the basis for my experients, I used a recipe from Emmanuel Hadjiandreou’s book ‘How to Make Bread’ .

The recipe calls for 200 grams of sourdough starter because it’s a heavy dough. You need to take a view on the strength of your starter; if it’s on the watery or weak side then use more. Adjust the amount of water so that you have, in total, 420 grams of starter and water. Here’s a good article on making and feeding your sourdough starter from King Arthur Flour. A great thing about King Arthur is that they have live on line chat during US east coast business hours. They’ve helped me unsnarl a couple of knotty problems in the past.

I’ve gone for kneading in the mixer, but you can also do ‘stretch and fold’ or traditional hand kneading. Don’t be tempted to make a double batch in your Kitchen Aid, it may burnout the motor.

Recipe

Specialist kit

Three pieces of equipment help with ‘traditional’ sourdough; a proving basket, a baking stone and a baking peel. None is mandatory. If you don’t have a proving basket, line your largest loaf pan and do the second prove in it. If you don’t have a baking stone, use your sturdiest baking sheet. The peel is generally useful and once you’ve got one you won’t know how you did without it but a lightweight tray or a big spatula can do the trick. One more link to an online source of baking equipment. – Bakery Bits.

Ingredients

200 grams (7 ounces) small pieces of dried fruit such as raisins, currants or dried cranberries

80 grams (3 ounces) chocolate chips; milk, dark, semi-sweet or white but good quality

330 (12 ounces) grams plain white flour

8 grams (generous teaspoon) salt

20 grams ( 3/4 ounce) good quality cocoa powder

200 grams (7 ounces) strong sourdough starter

220 mls (7 3/4 ounces) tepid water

Method

1. Combine the dried fruit and chocolate chips in a small bowl and set aside .
2. Whisk together the flour, salt and cocoa powder in another bowl (dry ingredients)
3. Put the sourdough starter and the water in your mixing bowl. Break up the starter so that it’s well mixed in with the water. Put the dough hook on your mixer.
4. Add the dry ingredients to the water and starter – start the mixer and let it run for 8 to 10 minutes. You should have a good elastic dough.
5. Transfer to a well floured work surface. Knead in the chocolate chips and fruit mixture by hand.
6. Put the dough in a well greased mixing bowl, cover the bowl with a shower cap and leave until it has at least doubled. I left mine to rise overnight in a very cool room. It can take four to eight hours
7. Once it has doubled, back to the well floured surface. Flatten to a rectangle and place in your well floured proving basket. If you’re using a loaf pan, line it with parchment paper. Leave the dough for the second prove. If you can be patient, you’ll get better risen bread. It’s hard to over prove sourdough. Try for doubled, although you might not get there.
8. Pre-heat the oven to 220C. One of the downsides of using a baking stone is that it takes longer for the oven to heat up. Place an old roasting pan on the bottom of the oven and put 250 mls (one cup) of water to one side.
9. Put a piece of baking parchment on your peel or on a lightweight baking sheet. Tip out the dough onto the parchment and slide on to the baking stone. Pour the water into the roasting pan. Bake the loaf for 30 minutes.
10. Test with your thermometer (>90c) or tap to see if your loaf sounds hollow.

I know it’s difficult but try and let the bread cool for at least 30 minutes before you cut into it and eat. Bake on, folks. Please ask questions via email, social media or the comment function.